


Fault lines

by FiveRaysOfSun



Category: NU'EST
Genre: Alternative Universe - Disbandment, Bittersweet Ending, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction, Post Produce 101, Smut, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, jbaek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 03:40:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18730963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiveRaysOfSun/pseuds/FiveRaysOfSun
Summary: In the final days before the groups disbandment, Dongho breaks up with Minhyun and it ruins his heart. Jonghyun is a good friend and consoles him, but he wishes if only he had been the one to meet Dongho first.





	Fault lines

**Author's Note:**

> yeah this is one of those,,, also written from a pov where after bro101 the group did not get revived
> 
> tbh this was supposted to only be a quick one under 5k so its rly iffy,,,,,,,, anyways i want everyone to pretend that they didn't see this

Tonight fresh snow was again coming down from the sky and for the past week it never seemed to end, resulting in the whole city draped in a thick white. The winter had come.

Jonghyun focused his phone lens at the pretty snowfall, pointing his camera through the dimmed windows of inside the managers van, but he could never get the picture quite right.

After failed attempts, he decided to leave the warm comfort of the car and join the other members who were already playing outside – yelling and putting snow behind each others necks.

Jonghyun was only nineteen around that time, he was a bit shorter back then, so the snow was pretty much up to his knees, as he had hopped out from the car. The thick, layered winter boots he wore landed in the snow with a crunch.

Jonghyun had gone out of the car for only just a moment, but his cheeks were already puffy and pink from this dreadful cold. He hid his pout under a scarf that reached up to his nose and began to clumsily stomp forwards.

The once bright sky overhead had already quickly turned to dark, even though it wasn’t so late in the day. Jonghyun had to squint his eyes to see far, he watched similar figures playfully fighting and laughing under the row of flickering park lamp light posts.

In closer distance his eyes could finally make out the faces of his own friends, his group mates. Their identity was soon confirmed by a very familiar squeal coming from none other than his main vocalist, Dongho.

The guy was laughing out loud, losing his shit at something and Jonghyun did not even know why, but Donghos infectious smile influenced the other man standing in the distance to smile just as wide, if not even wider, as well. Jonghyun lifted his scarf up higher on his face to keep it well hidden.

Just as he watched him, out of nowhere, he witnessed a rouge flying snowball explode into Donghos face. The short male retreated his head, but it was already too late. He had to open his mouth to breathe, as snow had even piled up inside of his nostrils and in the heat of the moment he began to both curse and laugh.

Jonghyun froze his footsteps and gradually lost his smirk, overwhelmed by another laugh ten times louder than Donghos. The shortest male yelled Minhyuns name, directing his cusses at the man who had thrown the snow.

The tall male emerged from the dark laughing like he was the devil, holding even more snow in his hands ready to fire off at his already weakened friend. Dongho cried and jumped around him trying to dodge the continuous attacks, the two men ended up chasing one another in circles like little kids.

Jonghyun hadn’t realized for how long he had just been standing there in one spot and staring at the two best friends. While Dongho hadn’t even noticed Jonghyun step out of the car. It was so obvious who was the only person in the eyes of the overjoyed male, as he had no room for no one else in the world.

His sights had shifted over to Minhyun who’s laughs and smiley focused eyes matched with Donghos. It was like the two of them were trapped in their own little world, separate from everything else, even if Aaron and Mingi were tussling right in the background of them.

Jonghyuns weird dreamy state ended as soon as he heard Minhyun call him by his name, choosing to stop bullying Dongho to ask the boy to join his alliance against him instead.

In that moment in time, Jonghyun felt like he was rather interrupting something, so he shook his head without saying anything else he instead returned to the car. Jonghyun would hate to ruin their fun.

As he went back, the fun and the squealing behind him started right back up again as if it had never even ceased, and for some reason Jonghyun didn’t really want to hear it today all that much. So to shut it out quicker, he had closed door of the van a little harder than necessary. 

The silence inside of the car away from all that noise on the outside was much better, he could lay down with his eyes closed. The faint sounds of snowflakes tapping on the outside windows were there to calm him.

Dongho had heard the door slap closed from way afar and raised his eyebrow to look in its direction, only seeing their manager already dozing off in the front seat.

“We should go back now.” He turned to his tall friend who by now had become too tired to keep fighting in the snow. However, something on his face showed that Minhyun didn’t want to go back just yet.

A shine lit up inside of his eyes. Minhyun reached to pinch Donghos jacket my the elbow, pulling him somewhere through the snow.

“Come with me first, quickly.” He stressed for his friend to follow him in some random direction, one that Minhyun wasn’t even too sure of himself.

Dongho reluctantly dragged his feet when Minhyun took him away, because the jerk wasn’t even responding to say where they were going. This was happening all while their manager was waiting for them in the car, after having told them that they shouldn’t wander off too much, otherwise they’d make people worried.

Minhyun had pulled Dongho further just around a corner of a building next to the park, on its side there was a gap where one side of the building met the neighbouring wall of another one. The men found themselves in this secret tucked away alleyway that lacked the light from the street.

“Why the hell did you bring me back here?” Dongho faced his friend in confusion, “Are ya’ gonna rob me out here or something, you punk?” He raised an angry glare.

Minhyun made a guilty smirk – indeed, he intended to steal a thing from Dongho. In place of giving his friend a verbal reply, the tall male surprised the other by leaning his neck down to his height, quickly placing a kiss on the edge of Donghos lips that had now frozen stiff in surprise.

The shortest became wide-eyed and for long seconds just stood there without reacting. As soon as Minhyun had nervously retreated, Dongho let out a relieved breath, “Woah?” That sure came out of nowhere, he thought.

Minhyun started to shyly smile, “Yeah, sorry.” He apologized to the other for having made this so weird. “I can’t do this in the car in front of the others, you know? Hehe.” He explained why he had stole a kiss from the other out here.

Flustered, Dongho rolled away his eyes to the side where he would not have to look at that dumb, grinning fool. “They are going to find out about us eventually anyways.” He complained.

“Yeah, but I am scared of stuff.” Minhyun admitted that he was being silly by looking to the ground in small shame.

“I know, I know.” Dongho spoke up, reassuring his friend that he didn’t mind all of this too much. Because Minhyuns was actually being quite reasonable.

That’s how he always was, calculated and well thought out about every single thing. To hide an underlying problem of him actually being an worried and anxious wreck all along.

“Then, should we go back now?” Dongho asked the other after a longer pause, but it looked like Minhyun then still had some words left to say.

“Wait, I have another idea.” Minhyun was suddenly grinning wider, as if he had some kind of trick up his sleeve again. 

Dongho sighed in preparation for the worst, “That can never mean anything good.” He groaned.

He watched as his friend nervously fished a black marker out of the pocket of his coat. Hwang usually carried these around with him in case they were ever spotted in public and had to give out signatures. Dongho found it silly, as they weren’t even celebrities yet, but Minhyun believed he could be one regardless.

Its marker cap came off with a pop, and Minhyun turned to near himself the wall of the alleyway. Dongho peeked over his tall shoulder to see what the little hooligan was doing.

“Hey!” He called Minhyun out as soon as his marker had touched the building wall. Minhyun shushed him in fear he might get caught for yet another crime, only this time getting caught again all because of Dongho.

Once finished, the boy stepped aside to show off his handiwork to his partner. They were both looking at their own first name initials written out in English letters.

“M plus D?” Dongho cringed in disgust, furiously scratching the back of his head as if he had been bit by a bug. Minhyun would proudly nod while gazing upon the now vandalized spot.

The lettering wasn’t too big on the wall, nobody would ever come across it if they looked from afar. It was barely visible and secret, but it was there – the proof of his and Donghos relationship, which were just as secret.

“Dude, this is too corny.” Dongho turned around to look at the other guy wanting to get out of here. 

Minhyun knew that, yet despite all, engraving his own and his lovers initials somewhere was still something that he had always wished to do one day. He had seen couples do this in movies, and books, and became envious that he could not do many of those same simple things with Dongho, just because they both happened to be boys.

The two had been dating on secret, meaning they could never properly express any romantic gestures to one another in fear of being found out. Even going on dates together was risky, so it often felt as if they weren’t even dating at all. So for Minhyun, even a tiny gesture like this bought a small relief for him.

Dongho was handed the same marker next, Minhyun wanted him to do the honour of adding the finishing touches. Only after a moment of hesitation Dongho had quickly scribbled a clumsy heart around it. It came out pretty good, he thought, and the two came to adore their signature together.

 

Few years had passed since that snowy day. Everything since in their lives had been tossed over, hetic schedules and lackluster promotions had left the group quick out of funding to continue new album production.

Their old dreams as an idol group to gain fame together had since long faded and they had become just another nameless group in the sea of idol hopefuls with an unreachable dream struggling to get by.

However, it wasn’t like that for Minhyun, who unlike his other members, had been cast to as a member of a new group – a successful group. 

His old had no choice, but to happily see him off to his new path of stardom. They thought, at least one of them had made it somewhere in life, so they all acted like they were happy about it, and that they couldn’t be sad, because after all, Minhyun was the one fulfilling the dream on their behalf.

The only person who objected to it all was Dongho, who didn’t want to see him abandon them, but Minhyun easily forgave him knowing that the man was only afraid of losing him. He swore that he would return one day when he had enough money to pay for his friends debts.

Before this had happened, Dongho would have trusted Minhyun more than anything, but now only fear of abandonment lived in his heart. So he had named Minhyuns words an empty promise.

During their final parting, Dongho had spitefully told Minhyun that he didn’t care for any of it – not fame, nor money, nor some stupid contract that the guy had to sign. Thus, that time Minhyun left, had become a hurtful memory for them both. Even if they had made a sure promise not to break up, it felt like they had.

For days after Minhyun had gone away Dongho was fuming, being uncontrollable and acting like an entirely different person. He pushed his closest friends away from him, giving everyone around him a hard time to the point where everyone began to shift away from him.

Dongho would not even listen to his groups leader anymore, like he had always done before. Jonghyun tried everything for his sake, everything he could to keep the remaining members together. However, unlike the other members, there was nothing Jonghyun could do to console Donghos loss.

The only thing that calmed Dongho was whenever Minhyun would call him on the phone or stop by at their old dorm room to say hi. But after a while, even that was not enough anymore.

Giant glowing signboards with Minhyuns face were displayed across the city. Despite how things had turned out, Dongho was still so proud of him for becoming successful. He wished to brag and boast to the whole world that his boyfriend was up there, but he couldn’t.

Every time Dongho passed an ad of Minhyun in the subway or just about every other bus stop, he always felt a strange, unwanted sense of loneliness wash over him. He felt weird having to stand out here, mere metres away from the poster of his own boyfriend, who seemed like he was in an entirely different dimension from him. 

Donghos loud feelings for the man became miniscule and ignored in the background of his boyfriends new fame, as if he had been forgotten – left behind.

Minhyun never backed down from his promise to return to the group and finally after many months, days were finally becoming less and less. However, now the return of that man was no longer exciting to Dongho. 

Of course, him feeling that way wasn’t something that he had ever planned for, in fact he was scared to imagine himself ever growing out of wishing for Minhyun to return, because he still loved him. He longed for him so much it was like he had been left without air, so it made no sense.

However, while Minhyun had been away, those heart warming feelings that kept him alive, were slowly fading away replaced by this dull, dreadful emotion that couldn’t be explained. Something had changed.

These days Dongho felt as if he was the who always cared more than Minhyun, as gradually the guy never put in the effort to call him or even text anymore. Minhyun was always saying how he had too many schedules coming up, turning him down at every and each chance, when all his boyfriend wanted was to just see him again. Even if it was for just five minutes, or not even a minute, that would be more than enough for the desperate Dongho, who had been missing him too much.

The lying jerk did not even realize that Dongho could easily find Minhyuns supposed schedules online. He made sure that he would only ever call on days where the man was free. However, Dongho would just pretended that his boyfriend was always speaking the truth when he claimed to be busy, purely because he did not want to break the two of them apart even more.

It went on like that for months, and now Dongho was starting to realize that he just couldn’t continue going on like this. It was like Minhyun had already stopped loving him, but was too coward to just say it. Dongho was left living in the dark, clueless if he should keep waiting or just move on, and every day it was killing him more.

 

Now Dongho sat alone in his room with all of the lights turned off, back pressed up against a wall and his phone still gripped in his hand right after getting hanged up on by Minhyun again. This was going to be the last time, he told himself.

Writing out the; “Let’s just break up.” text was easier than ever this time around. Dongho had been meaning to say it for weeks already, even though doing this was perhaps already months overdue.

Minhyun rarely ever responded to any texts in time, or responded at all, but this time not after five minutes of waiting, the spam of endless apologies and petty plea deals began piling up inside of Donghos inbox.

Dongho had already predicted this kind of outcome – Minhyun was prone to trying to fix things he should not. Despite knowing very well that this was the end, Dongho was still naive enough to give him one last chance.

“Then let’s meet up, talk to me in person.” Dongho texted, and the screen of his phone stood still for a while before a reply popped up.

“I am sorry, I’m very busy this time of week. I don’t think I can see you after the next week either.” Minhyun apologized, but Dongho just wouldn’t accept it anymore. 

No matter how important his new job was for Minhyun, Dongho didn’t want to keep waiting on the other man, when at this point it was driving him pretty much insane. 

They could always get back together in the future for sure, but right now, Dongho no longer felt what he did for Minhyun like what he once did before, and it was obvious that Minhyun was familiar with the same type of feeling.

Dongho described this in his next text. Minhyun responded just as quick, saying how he was feeling like that as well recently, as if this was somehow meant to make Dongho feel any better. 

In anger, Dongho had to grit his teeth and wince his eyes just to continue looking at his phone screen. It had become too blurry and bright for him to read as bitter tears burned at his own eyes.

“I don’t want to wait for you anymore.” Dongho meant to text his boyfriend, but his fingers were trembling almost as if they had a mind of their own, unable to press the button to send that last message.

Minhyun wasn’t going to renew with his old group, Dongho just knew it. The guy had so many new opportunities opening up for him and being stuck with his old band would only end up holding him back. So ultimately, Minhyun would not return to him either. Without looking back, he pressed send.

Instead of crying at his phone all night, Dongho dropped his body limp onto the bed mattress that sat on the floor trying to sleep it off. He pointlessly stared at the ceiling far above him, letting the silence of the room distract him from the loudest thoughts racing through his head. 

He soon forgot about the phone that had since long lost its ring. It looked like Minhyun was done with replying to his texts as well. Their conversation was ambiguously left on Minhyun saying; “I’ll see you soon.” But knowing that guy, that would just never happen.

 

Footsteps broke inside of the room over. A straight line of light broke from a gap in the doorframe splitting Jonghyuns bedroom in two, while a figure peered inside to see if the leader figure had already gone to sleep. 

The sleepy Jonghyun winced his eyes open and then back shut frightened by the glow in the dark putting a strain on his eyes. He would be lying if he said that he didn’t feel annoyed right now to be awaken at such a late hour.

He could already tell who had just snuck in even before the person had opened their mouth to speak their apologies. The sound of Donghos dragging footsteps could not be replicated. 

Jonghyun woke up again to find Dongho come to him with a concerned frown on his face. The sad jerk really couldn’t hide it, something had upset him again. Yet Dongho had came in acting like nothing was wrong like he always did for the past few weeks, when not wanting to be an inconvenience.

Jonghyun could tell that this time it was actually serious, as if Dongho was expecting something devastating to happen to him, asking for help right before an unavoidable crash. Jonghyun made a quick guess in his head, but he didn’t want to be noisy by asking such a thing – Minhyun had probably finally done it and dumped him.

“Can I sleep in your room tonight?” Dongho had already managed to hop himself into Jonghyuns roomy bed, that was not as roomy now that he was here. The leader had to sigh out loud at the sad sight his friend had become.

For this time only, Jonghyun agreed to take him in for the night. Yet something did make him wonder, “Why my room?” He pretend to complain.

“Well because,” Dongho paused, “Mingi has a cat in his room and Aaron has two dogs in there as well.” He grinned at his friend in the dark. 

There was hinted sadness hidden behind that pretty row of teeth and Jonghyun could tell so well, it hurt him too. Jonghyun probably knew Dongho better than anyone in the world by now. He was so used to listening to the mans each and every small complaint, once before Dongho used to be so talkative, meaning there were no secrets he kept to himself.

Dongho was young and brash, he was blunt and often spoke without thinking. Jonghyun saw it as his responsibility to steer him towards the right path, while at the same time not stand in his way too much. That’s why each time Dongho came to him about his boy crush troubles, Jonghyun let the guy figure it out for himself.

Jonghyun was the first person that Dongho would come out to about the feelings he had for Minhyun. And even through Jonghyun advised him that it would be for the best to not date a member of his own group, in the end he still didn’t stop Dongho from asking out his best friend. 

Instead Jonghyun became selfishly greedy seeing Dongho being happy, even if he was happy around someone else that wasn’t him.

So now he paid the price for it, by being forced to watch all of his predictions unfold before his very own eyes, when the two lovers eventually had to part ways. At first, Jonghyun thought he could somewhat stomach his best friend Minhyun leaving them, but seeing Dongho, who was still very much dating the guy at the time, break down like that broke a little something in Jonghyun too.

Nowadays the Dongho he knew had drastically changed in only a matter of the past few weeks. The once lean and easily excited guy had become avoidant and secretive. He no longer came to Jonghyun for advice, he had stopped sharing his every and little fact about himself with Jonghyun. It was strange of him, uncanny.

Jonghyun wanted to care for Dongho throught his hard times, but then again, he had to care for everyone else just as much and he was in no position to let his own miserable feelings get in the way of keeping the group together.

“Yeah, of course you can stay here, bud.” Jonghyun made Dongho spring the rest of his body into the bed where the guy had decided to sleep next to him for tonight. It had surely been a long while since this pair had used a bed together, so it was nice.

“Thank you.” Dongho made a shy reply, rubbing his nose against Jonghyuns mushy, warm pillows.

For Dongho, this was only a childish distraction, but it still worked. Every time he was around Jonghyun his mind just kind of managed to switch off and he ceased to worry. Hanging out with Aaron and Mingi was fine too, but they often didn’t produce the same effect, since those two jokesters were used to being loud and erratic, as where Jonghyun was more calm and reserved when he needed to be.

Dongho took hold of Jonghyuns stained duvet that was thrown nearby. The corners had been all crumpled and greyed from wear, since the leader slept on the floor mat much like himself. 

Jonghyun reached his hand to help pull it over his exhausted friend, but his hand froze in travel when Dongho had already successfully pulled the blanket over all on his own. Jonghyun slowly folded his hand into an anxious fist and then held it back, tucking it away before his friend could even see it.

The leader watched as his friend was automatically asleep and his heart began to feel a little bit lighter seeing him sleep peacefully, although this didn’t help him feel any less like a failed leader, who couldn’t even make sure that the people in his own group were happy.

Dongho slept on his side smiling, and he already knew that this would probably be his last time smiling for a while. By the next morning of waking up, he will finally realize what he had done – he had broken up with Hwang Minhyun, the only person in the world he had ever loved and adored this much, and his heart would never be whole again.

Jonghyun stared at the pretty, toothy grin Dongho was making for just a little longer, secretly engraving it deep into his memory. Then after a minute, he too laid down to join his friend in sleep.

The leader always wished that he could somehow make Dongho happy again, like the way he had been on that one winter night when they were young. He wished to see Dongho like that more than he wished to seek such happiness for himself.

 

Even though Dongho was supposed be getting over his heartache by now, and even if he had been the one to break up himself. Days after the breakup he immediately fell into a state of regret, like he was the bad one for dumping Minhyun, and he would never earn someone like him back. 

The man didn’t even have the courage to tell his bandmates that him and Minhyun had broken up. He just shut himself in and acted like a jerk, because it was easier to drive everyone away with lies than it was to admit that he had lost Minhyun.

He tried to forget, but for him there was no way of forgetting about a person like Minhyun. It also didn’t help that his face was everywhere he went – on television, in ads on beer cans, in movie posters printed on high building walls.

Even back at the safety of his own home, every little thing reminded him of the tall handsome man. All clothes present in his closet were the ones that they had bought together, all little things like books and figurines that Minhyun once kept on his desk were still there.

He would throw them all away if he could, but Dongho didn’t want his friends to think that he had gone all crazy by throwing away every single thing in sight that made him think of Minhyun.

Just as Jonghyun had predicted, after that day Dongho had become very different and it only seemed to be getting worse with time – in days time, he never left his room, barely spoke to anyone. However, when he did he had no emotion left in him, almost as if he didn’t care about anything.

Mingi and Aaron did not understand why he was acting up like this, and they were slowly starting to get more and more frustrated with him when he would skip practice after practice without a notice, never answer his calls or even unlock his room door to let them in.

The constantly emptied bags of chips that randomly kept showing up in the trash bin, served the only sign that the guy was still alive in there hidden in his room.

The two group mates gossiped, likening trying to talk to Dongho, as if they were speaking to a corpse, someone that looks like your friend, but won’t even look at you. 

Hearing them say this was the first time that Jonghyun had ever caught his group members speaking about another member behind their back. In that moment after finding out, Jonghyun felt so hurt and devastated, that he wished to punch someone for it. Obviously, he had never thought about harming another person in his life before that day. 

Jonghyun forgave them. After all they only wanted their old friend back and hated the opposite person he was slowly becoming.

 

On a different night, inside the once again quiet dark dorm, there was a sound that made Jonghyun awake – a beep coming from the locked apartment front door. It sounded as if someone was trying to get in, but they had entered the wrong door code. Jonghyun slept in the living room that night, so he could hear it more clearly.

Jonghyun finally woke up from an accidental nap in front of the TV that was left still running in the background, flashing colours on his face. He turned it off and gently pushed away Aaron, who had been drooling onto his shoulder, before looking at the clock to see what time it was. Way past midnight, it showed.

But then again he heard that same sound again, when he was awake, and it was made obvious that hearing it wasn’t just a part of his imagination. Someone was at the door of their apartment, trying to get in without ringing the doorbell.

Jonghyun snuck towards the door that beeped two more times before he got there, and when he was really close it had by then stopped. Without glancing through the doors eyehole Jonghyun opened it, as he had a strong feeling he knew who it was standing out there.

Minhyun was on the outside wearing the expression of surprise and shame on his face after getting caught trying to sneak his way in, finding himself here in middle of the night, while he obviously had other more important things to attend to.

The tall male became shy, swinging his arm behind his neck. “You changed the key code?” Minhyun asked.

Jonghyun made a nervous chuckle, a quiet one that wouldn’t wake anyone inside up. He replied, “Mingi changed it.” Minhyun nodded and began to smile, “That would make sense.”

Minhyun had smiled at the ground in awkward silence for too long, it was making his old friend worried. “What did you come here for?” Jonghyun asked the question even if it was already obvious.

“I—” Minhyun barely stopped himself from saying that he was here to see Dongho. To console him and say the proper goodbye that the guy deserves to hear.

But Minhyun wasn’t so brave anymore, “This was a mistake, please act like I never came.” Tallest male bowed his head before the leader in apology.

Exactly at the same time, Jonghyun was thinking about Dongho too. Perhaps it wouldn’t be good for the grieving man to meet his boyfriend right now in middle of the night. The same went for Minhyun. If the guy saw the miserable state that Dongho was in right now he would tear himself in half for it.

“Should I at least tell Dongho that you were here?” Jonghyun offered, causing Minhyun to squint his eyes down into a pained frown.

“No.” He said, then turned away to leave in a nervous rush, before he could change his mind about it.

Jonghyun watched the man disappear behind the closing elevator doors, not realizing that this would be the last time he would see him.

 

Light of the next morning sun sneakily slid in-between window blinds to Jonghyuns room, drawing lines of white across his large floor bed, where naked limbs poked from under the sheets.

Messy clothes, unwashed from last week, and bottles of plastic were just about everywhere on the floor after days had gone by and he was not ever in the cleaning mood.

Maybe if that other guy still lived here that guy would have pulled him by the ears and made the guy tidy up. Jonghyun opened his eyes exiting his day dream and once again reunite with the dull reality.

Jonghyun tried to sit up from his bed to get to the bathroom, but the blanket around him felt heavier than before. He pulled back on the duvet that was up to his neck, and underneath he found Dongho laying down like a kitten, head pressed by his shoulder.

The guy had again snuck in overnight, it was already the third night in a row thst he had done this, yet this was actually the first time that Jonghyun had woken up before Dongho had managed to sneak back out to go back to his own room.

Dongho had been awake for some time. The nights were difficult for him, as he always managed to doze off for only five minutes at a time – nightmares kept him awake. 

The light burning red through his eyelids woke Dongho from one such nap. He glanced up at Jonghyum with his eyes all droopy, tormented and red. In fact his whole face looked about the same, like he had been exhausted from crying. 

“Minhyun?” This was the first thing he said in the morning. He did so while staring directly at Jonghyuns face right, as it was still just coming into focus.

“It’s Jonghyun.” The tallest replied.

Upon waking up, Dongho would be hoping to see the tall male from his dreams laying next to him, but seeing just Jonghyun instead only made his stomach twist. Meanwhile Jonghyun felt hurt too, his heart felt like breaking in half, as soon as Dongho closed his tired eyelids again to look away from him. Jonghyun wished that his friend would recognize him too, at least for once.

The leader let go of his grim thoughts and carefully began to sit up. This accidentally triggered Dongho to jump out of his tired state to for whatever reason stop him from doing so. By hugging both of his arms around Jonghyuns waist, he held his ear pressed to the mans side.

“Wait. Please stay.” Dongho begged in the weakest voice. Jonghyun didn’t mind a hug from him, but it surprised him so much, since the big guy hadn’t hugged him in ages. 

“Don’t go yet.” He desperately begged.

“I won’t go anywhere.” Jonghyun stared down at the body that was squeezing him like his life depended on it. 

“It’s okay, silly. I won’t leave.” Jonghyun calmed the other man who trusting of him then slowly began to release his grip. 

Dongho got up to face him. He was obviously crying again, helpless sobs began to come up like hiccups from his wet, stained lips. Dongho felt so sorry for himself right now when crying like a child in front of his very leader. He wished to apologize to Jonghyun, for something, anything at all.

“Jonghyun, I am so sorry for being like this.” He spoke against the painful lump blocking the back end of his throat. 

Dongho had felt lonely in his room, because scary thoughts raced through his head at night. To escape them he had snuck in the room of the only friend that still didn’t hate him as much yet.

“You don’t have to be sorry for anything.” Jonghyun spoke sincere things to his friend, which in his eyes had done nothing wrong. 

The next string of words he had prepared, he spoke those with much caution. 

“You and Minhyun – you two broke it off with each other the other night, right?” Jonghyun gained his friends full stare as soon as that very name had left his mouth.

Dongho always responded to hearing Minhyuns name, probably even quicker than his own name.

The other man nodded, after which his own head drooped back to being permanently lowered. Dongho never wanted to make it obvious and wished to hide the news in order to not disappoint his friends, but Jonghyun had already known right from the start. Ever since Dongho had come to his room on that night, looking to hug someone for no reason at all.

Dongho felt like a fool for getting his feelings so hurt, after all, he was indirectly affecting everyone in the group by being this way.

“I should have never dated him, I only made this harder for everyone by doing so.” Dongho quietly admitted to himself. 

“What are you saying?” Jonghyun was shook by such a claim, especially since knowing how much the poor guy cared for Hwang. This wasn’t the real Dongho speaking, instead his irrational thoughts and insecurities had twisted his mind. Jonghyun concluded.

Dongho didn’t think the same way. He would still believe these same words even if he wasn’t a sobbing, hysteric mess right now. After all, he had been hurting for weeks and it never seemed to stop, these feelings were definite now.

The short man surprised him, “I was the one who dumped him. I forced myself to finally do it.” 

Jonghyuns eyebrows rode even higher on his forehead than they already were. He had never expected for Dongho to be the one to end the relationship, since most of the time the guy acted like he couldn’t even exist without him.

“Then why did you break up if you didn’t want to?” Jonghyun encouraged him to collect himself and think it all over, as if there was a chance for Dongho to go back and undo what he had done.

The short male began to explain his stance, he delivered his words quickly, “He doesn’t want to see me anymore, and right now I don’t even want to see him either.”

Jonghyun was left a little speechless now. He had never expected for the two lovebirds to split so horribly, yet sadly for the longest time he had already seen it coming. Up to now, he didn’t want to get involved, but seeing Dongho like this made him wish he did.

A tremor ruined the voice of the sobbing man, the more he spoke the more his words became slurred, “Was I wrong to break up with him? I thought it would make everything easier. So then why is it not getting any easier?” 

Dongho raised his sad doe eyes at his leader for an actual advice, but the guy had none to give him. Jonghyun slowly started to put distance in between him and Dongho, as he no longer hugged him. 

“Are you positive? Are you sure you didn’t misunderstand?” Jonghyun had to ask while he was trying to think from Minhyuns perspective too.

Minhyun was always busy these days, so it would be very easy for the touch starved Dongho to think up all kinds of ridiculous things in his head.

A sudden sharp tone rang the walls of the hallow bedroom which lacked any furniture to break the noise. Dongho was yelling, “If I did misunderstand, then he would have just talked to me and not ignored me!”

Jonghyun had became dead silent, as if he had swallowed his own tongue. He began staring at the pitiful man, whose eyes had been filled to the brim with tears. Jonghyun stayed like that for a bit, unable to come up with anything to say that would ever comfort his friend.

Now freshly pissed off, Dongho let out a sarcastic laugh at himself. “I’m really fucking unlovable aren’t I?” He mocked.

Jonghyun wanted to say no, but Dongho was already speaking again. “I didn’t even deserve him, so he probably realized that too, and dipped quick.” He angrily whined.

Jonghyun was hurt by such harsh words. It made him absolutely enraged that Dongho would ever say something like this about himself – acting like there was no one else out there that loves him, the idiot didn’t even have a clue. 

“Don’t even say that.” He objected.

“Right.” Dongho chuckled again out of spite, continuously being rude towards Jonghyun, “You are just gonna say that the fans still love me again or something, right?”

The crying boy wiped his nose with a sleeve. A smirk of irony appeared wide spread across his face. “Would they still like me if they actually knew me, if they saw me like this?” He complained, not noticing his friends fists already clenching from anger.

Of course Dongho was loved, aside from Minhyun, there was someone else that loved him more than anything. But Jonghyun was forced to just shut his mouth and keep silent about it like he had always has done. However, the fact that he couldn’t say anything that would prove Dongho that he wasn’t so unlovable was driving him crazy. Jonghyun was literally boiling with anger.

Dongho noticed the corners of his friends eyes turning red, and gradually shifted to stand up to save himself the trouble of being yelled at by the leader. He believed that this argument proved how Jonghyun was already disappointed by him, and probably hated him too. 

He assumed that he had hit rock bottom and now Minhyun would never want to come back to a miserable guy like him.

“That is not true,” Jonghyuns next approach was careful, he didn’t wish to say too much, “I love you Dongho. You are like a brother to me—” 

His quiet voice was suddenly overwhelmed by a louder bark. “I’m going back to sleep.” Dongho groaned to get his own leader out of his sight, as if he was some kind of a pest, shifting his legs to stand.

“Dongho!” Jonghyun had to call his friend by his name to finally make him snap out of it. Indeed, the tone in the leaders stern voice made Dongho fall right back in his seat. 

He then spoke to Dongho, “Don’t push me away, it hurts me too.” Jonghyun sounded deeply upset by the mean words.

The tallest expected to just be yelled at again, and he definitely had not been expecting for Dongho to come crash landing into his chest the very next second. The guy had no idea how to apologize anymore, all he just wanted was to not be left alone anymore.

It was a hug, but barely a proper one. More like Dongho had thrown his limp, defeated body at Jonghyun, hanging his chin over the mans shoulder like a drying rag.

Unclear what to do, Jonghyun would only hug the man back up until his own shoulders would lose their strength to. Pushing Dongho back was a struggle and a half when his friend had no idea how big he was. They weren’t really kids anymore.

“Should I have a word with him?” Jonghyun suggested, figuring that he was willing to intervene or talk this out with Minhyun as a leader.

Dongho didn’t want him to as his and Minhyuns relationship shouldn’t burden the group. He didn’t want for any of his other friends to get involved just because his feelings were hurt, it would be greedy.

The man would silently speak, his voice was just barely heard over Jonghyuns own breaths. Jonghyun could tell how emotionally tired his friend was. 

“No, we are already done.” Dongho shrugged, his tone of voice became gentle and quiet, and he suddenly began speaking the sweetest things, “Please, do not worry about me too much Jonghyun.”

Dongho shifted his leaning body away from his friends chest. Instead fixing his big puppyish eyes on Jonghyun, hands still slightly holding onto him.

The tall boy held down his breath looking at his friend from so up close. His heart was making want to say such greedy things, like how he wished he could replace Minhyuns empty spot for Dongho. Yet him saying such things out loud to the already fragile Dongho, would only make things more difficult.

For now Jonghyun just wanted Dongho to stop being sad, however it was evident that even his kindest of words would not penetrate the insecure mess that Dongho had become. 

“You said you wanted to go back to sleep? Let’s do that then, together.” Jonghyun advised.

Dongho managed to shrug a no. Speaking with an ashamed face. “It’s almost breakfast time already, I should just stay up.” He apologized, while sniffling his still runny, wet nose.

“Not on my watch. You probably haven’t even slept all that well?” Jonghyun stared at Dongho for long enough for him to finally glance up, his eyes flickered in response to the leaders judging stare. Jonghyun had once again guessed everything.

“Okay.” Dongho needed someone around, even if he hated being a burden to the leader. This one time was fine, he convinced himself to stay.

Jonghyun wasn’t going to say it outright, but he would definitely be down to skipping practices if all he could do was hug the big guy back to health.

Thus, as promised the two silently laid down facing one another, closing their eyes until way past noon. That way everything was nice for a while. 

For the first time Dongho was able to get some rest, because Jonghyun had bought him some comfort by being there. Although he already knew he couldn’t remain that calm for long. 

By the time Jonghyun woke up, he found himself in an empty bed again wishing to himself that Dongho had stayed for at least a minute more.

 

Another weekend had ran past and during that time everyone had decided to temporarily return to their hometowns and see their families. 

Recently their management had given them more frequent chances to go visit back home, and with each time they went, they secretly wished to return back to Seoul a little less. To be fair they did not really have a big reason to return to Seoul either way, since its not like their management even showed that they cared for the members not showing up for the practices anymore. Maybe this was yet another early warning sign about the unavoidable future of their group.

After getting back from their parents homes the trio, excluding Dongho, had agreed to meet back up to get some food together first, coming back together for the old times sake. 

The relationship between the members had become tense. Even Aaron and Mingi, best buddies for life, could not find common ground about the most things anymore. Yet all the members wanted to fix this unfortunate predicament, because they really loved one another and wanted to preserve that.

Dongho hadn’t shown up yet. He didn’t want to come out and neither did his friends want him to come here with them. Aaron and Mingi still had no idea about Dongho and Minhyun no longer being a thing, so if they knew this perhaps they would have been more lenient on him. However, at the same time, Dongho had not told them himself yet, because he didn’t want his friends to automatically take his side and blame Minhyun.

The three remaining men sat around inside of shabby, worn down restaurant that they frequented not far from their dorm. Bottles of beer naturally crowded the small table, being passed around from one mouth to another without even double checking who had drank from it first.

Mingis best efforts of small talk were always interrupted by Jonghyun who just couldn’t sit still and not get distracted for not even a minute. Mingi made a sad frown watching his friend turning his whole head back around to look behind himself, right as Mingi had been in the middle of an important sentence.

It became evident that Jonghyun was eagerly waiting for someone to join them, and both Mingi and Aaron dreaded to know who it was already. Their faces both dropped seeing Dongho, slouched over and dragging his feet, come in through the door attracted by the waving Jonghyun.

“Why did you have to bring that guy out here with us again?” Aaron cruelly referred to Dongho, darting a glare at him as he came over.

Mingi felt like a jerk for agreeing, but he felt that way too. The boys were meant to go out together and have fun, forget about all of their worries, that was the whole point of their outing. However they couldn’t do it if Dongho was there too. The guy was too much of a downer these days, with him everyone else couldn’t have fun because he made them feel like shit too.

The worst part was that Dongho didn’t even want to come out and hang out either, he had to be forced to, because of course Jonghyun had been the one forcing him to show up.

“Maybe we should have let him just sit this one out?” Mingi tried to make his suggestion sound as subtle as possible. “You know how he has been recently?” He added.

“Like what?” Just by lowering his eyebrows on his forehead alone, Jonghyuns whole face managed to change into a menacing, threatening glare.

Mingi visibly gulped, “A bit cranky, you know?” When hearing that description Aaron made a cruel laugh. 

“Cranky would be an understatement. I’m surprised none of you realize how that guy has been treating us.” He spoke while going back to drinking, pretending to mind his own business to Dongho who could still very clearly see him talking shit from afar.

The leader ignored Aaron and purposely spoke louder over him. “He needs to leave his house guys, we can’t just let him rot away in his room all day.” Jonghyun was pleading with his own friends.

 

“Then you go out with him, don’t involve us for fucks sake.” Aaron angrily raised from his seat, ready to leave, but Mingi caught his hand and mouthed him to stay, hoping Dongho wouldn’t hear any of this as he had just arrived to the table.

Dongho sat down on an emptied seat next to Jonghyun. He had definitely heard some of that conversation, but pretended that he didn’t. Aaron slowly sat back down too, but he never wiped the hateful frown off his face.

“Hey, guys.” Dongho announced himself and quickly went back to being silent. Everyone was staring at him now and while dirty looks wouldn’t make him too nervous before, they did now.

The others became irked by the fact he never took off his facemask, knowing that it was meant to hide his dirty face after not having the time to clean himself or even just wash up. But it wasn’t like he was even enticed to eat anything from the table or make everything worse by drinking, so he kept it on.

The man had only gotten here seconds ago, but his mind was already heavy with thoughts. The stares made him too worried to process anything else in his head, but shame. Eerie silence welcomed his new arrival at the table, nobody said hi back to all him except Jonghyun.

Mingi nervously bounced his big, dollish eyes around the table and its participants. He was the first one to break this uncomfortable silence. “I wish the table could be more noisier today.” He joked about it.

Aaron sighed after him, “Maybe if only that prick Hwang had actually showed up today.” 

He sounded annoyed by the lack of Minhyuns awful talking as well. Usually, that mans voice would be the loudest one always speaking whenever they found time to gather around.

The mention of that name made Donghos vision flicker at the speaker. For just a second Dongho looked normal and lively again, but right after his expression went back to being solemn.

At the same time as soon as Jonghyun had heard Minhyuns name get spoken, he had automatically turned to look at the pensive man beside him. He felt so bad for him.

Aaron and Mingi noticed Donghos face light up for just a second too, so it wasn’t hard to connect the dots and point everything back to Minhyun. 

Even though Dongho was probably going through something right now, Aaron and Mingi could not be fucked to let themselves be involved in some love quarrel, that had nothing to do with him, happening between those two. As he was already sick and tired when Dongho would take out his pent up frustrations out on his bandmates instead of fixing his own damn problems.

After finding a reason for it, it appeared Dongho had changed his mind about not drinking. Without turning to face away from the others, he loudly gulped down straight from a bottle. It made the rest of the boys scoff, Dongho was an absolute lightweight and everyone knew that. It would be mere minutes before Dongho would become bubbly and drunk from it, meaning possibly even more unbearable if he starts to run his mouth about missing his boyfriend all night again.

Dongho noticed the stares and stressed to pull the facemask back over his mouth, like he was retreating from being seen. Indeed, Aaron had been glaring at him with one eye squinting more than the other and after a long pause he spoke as if he was making a verdict.

“Well, it looks like I won’t be drinking any tonight.” He sighed, already looking forwards to being the driver who has to drive the drunkards home by himself.

“I can drive!” Jonghyun automatically raised his hand, as he had already originally intended to be the sober driver for tonight.

“You can walk.” Aaron put intonation into his words, promising to only take Mingi with him into his own car. 

The youngest turned to him with a hurt look on his face, biting his lip in worry while his eyes again darted from him and Aaron to the other side with Jonghyun and Dongho, preparing for the next fight to start any second.

Dongho woke up from having his sights lowered at the ground. Somewhere under the shade of his cap he made a tired face, one that stared right ahead of it and directly at Aaron. His eyes were empty, endless and dark. The man knew he was the start of the argument and accepted it as the proof that he shouldn’t have come.

Jonghyun jolted when Dongho suddenly stood back up from his seat, making a small apologetic bow at the others. “I have to be somewhere else right now, have a good one without me.” Dongho spoke in a monotone voice, as if he were programmed to.

No one said a thing to stop him from leaving, becoming shocked after realizing that it was all of their fault he did so. Even Aarons empty expression had gone from his face, replaced by one of regret.

“Yo, since when are you such a jerk?” Mingi muttered into his ear from the side. “I didn’t think he would actually leave just over that?” Aaron defended himself from glares, especially Jonghyuns.

Everything had become a mess again. The short male sat looking down at his own cupped hands noticing them tremble and twitch. He was starting to realize that he had actually become the bad guy all of a sudden.

Aaron mustered the courage to look at Jonghyun again, but his eyes had to take a double take when instead of finding Jonghyun fuming in his seat, he found it empty. The leader had already dashed out the door after his friend.

 

Jonghyun scanned in both directions of the street to see where the man had gone. Unfortunately, even at near night time, the city streets were still busy and packed with both locals flooding into each direction. He couldn’t see the man anywhere near, but there was no way Dongho could have run, Jonghyun doubted.

He tried to raise to his toes and see above the crowd, but still no sign of Dongho. It didn’t take too long until he soon finally found him not too far off, standing in front of a pedestrian crossing and waiting for the light to blink to green.

The light had been for a while, Dongho was just standing there blankly staring ahead as people passed him, and even bumped shoulders with him.

Jonghyun slowly walked up behind the man. It was like Dongho was out of it and he literally could not think about anything else, but that man. Jonghyun became sad that Dongho would not realize to look at the one behind him instead. He wished that Dongho would maybe look back and notice him standing there at least once, even if he turned back away straight away, that would still be enough.

Soon the traffic light began to gradually switch from green to red, Donghos brain finally clicked that it was just about to change from green to red and he jolted himself in position to sprint across while he still could, ignoring the line of cars waiting to drive through.

A weight yanked him back by the elbow before he even got the chance to do something as stupid as that. He ended up almost tumbling backwards on his ass, if he had not been held. This harsh movement was enough to cause Donghos vision to flash to black for a split second, and for some reason that lead him to believe that the person grabbing him away out of harm would be Minhyun.

Jonghyun watched Donghos face change as soon as he saw his, and again he knew exactly why Dongho had made that blank expression right now. It made his heart sink into his chest to know that even for a brief moment Dongho had imagined him as that other man instead of himself.

“Are you out of your mind?” Jonghyun yelled his ear off, whilst helping the guy stand back up. Dongho barely complied.

The man said nothing in reply to his actions, he didn’t look apologetic or at least bit shaken. Worst of all, if something bad were to actually happened to him, then Dongho probably wouldn’t even flinch before it. 

“Oh, I am sorry.” He finally replied, although almost a minute late. 

He felt like he should be sorry to Jonghyun right now, but he had not fully processed for what exactly. Maybe it was the shot of beer, maybe the trauma of motion, but he didn’t feel aware of himself anymore.

Jonghyun stared at him with a grief-stricken expression, baffled that his friend had managed to put himself in danger for even a second. Thus he began to only blame himself, by telling himself that he should’ve known Dongho better, that he should have not forced him to come out for drinking in the state that he was in now. It was all his fault, Jonghyun grieved.

“Are we going home now?” Donghos voice was muffled from underneath his facemask, head tilted to the ground so he wouldn’t have to look a person in the eyes.

“Dongho—” Jonghyuns voice held back. He was so sorry for the man, that he wished to cry on his behalf. 

Jonghyun bit his own tongue to distract himself from tearing up, and next thing he did was hold his friends hand before the eyes of the crowd at that intersection, not caring if they would get glared at. The best thing he could do right now was to pretend – to act like his heart wasn’t breaking too, so in that way he wouldn’t have to explain to Dongho why it did.

“Yeah, lets go home.” He told.

 

The abandoned dorm was no longer pitch black after a single bulb lit at the end of a corridor at the entrance. The place was stuffy, unaired after everyone had left for the weekend, but something about it seemed off already, Jonghyun could sense it. 

It was just Dongho and Jonghyun back at the dorm, and the other two members were still out, probably drinking themselves to death by now. The leader hoped that they would at least have someone to call to pick them up afterwards, but he cared more to stay with Dongho than to run back for them right then.

With heavy foot stomps, Jonghyun managed to carry the big man inside as far as the kitchen was. The guy wouldn’t move a muscle stuck to his back, apparently a sudden wave of a fatigue had taken control over Donghos body. Jonghyun let the man safely slide off and stand.

Dongho could manage to take off own coat, but couldn’t kneel to undo his own running shoes. His fingers helplessly scarped past own heel ten times before Jonghyun had grow tired of watching his struggle. He made his friend sit on top of a high kitchen counter to untie it’s messy laces.

While attempting to undo the ugly, knots Dongho had put together in a rushed and childish manner before he had head out, Jonghyun just happened to glance to the right of them noticing the sink literally drowning with unwashed dishes. Dongho saw it too and suddenly avoided looking at both the sink and his friend.

Jonghyun snapped his neck back straight in realization that the dorm had in fact never been empty over the weekend due to this guy. His original suspicion had been right again.

“Dongho, did you stay back here at the dorm while we were all gone?” Jonghyun watched his friend nod.

Dongho choose to not go back to his family at the end of that week, because he didn’t feel well enough to show his face to anyone, let alone his family who always worried the most. So for these past few days he had been living alone, he did so in order to clear his mind, but just as anyone could have already guessed, it did not help. Instead, it had even made things much worse for him.

Dongho wished Minhyun was here with him the whole time, picturing that he would be ringing at the door any minute from now, but that jerk never came, he never even rang the house phone anymore.

Stuck inside of the lonely four walls of his room, so many times Dongho had composed the long wall of text on his phone to be sent to Minhyun, of him begging the guy to take him back and save his life. Yet Dongho was never brave enough to send it. He found himself so petty, drowning in his own caused despair.

“You are probably angry with me too right?” Dongho asked Jonghyun, the only person who had still stuck around with him this far.

“No, why would I be?” Jonghyun spoke casually while still undoing at his shoes, for him. 

Dongho never answered out loud, but in his own mind he was already citing a long list of all the reasons why anyone would find him bothersome.

But Jonghyun didn’t appear to be so easily swayed by anything, and Dongho definitely noticed that. He thought that he really didn’t deserve a friend like him, someone who would willingly put up with his nonsense for this long. Dongho assumed, that’s just what all of his problems looked like to everyone else around him – nonsense.

Jonghyun forced himself to grin, hoping that his smile would somehow spread over to Donghos cheeks too. Yet it didn’t work, because for a brief while Dongho had forgotten how to even start a smile. 

Jonghyun reached to remove the mans cap for him, but once it was gone his palms stuck to comfortably rest across Donghos ears for a while. His tiny, pink warm earlobes that had been exposed to the harsh breeze on their way back home.

The leader made a sad face by observing his friend. He had noticed that in few days time, Donghos body had become weaker. He hadn’t been eating at all to the point it was starting to show, as his skin appeared to have lost it’s glow, becoming dull and pale grey, and those cheekbones were the first thing to stick out on his previously handsome, rounded face. 

Unkempt hair had been kept inside of that cap when Dongho had gone outside, meaning he had probably gone without washing any of it for a while. Jonghyuns pupils switched to big watching his fingers try to run through Donghos dirty curls.

“If you don’t mind,” Dongho began to speak to stop his friend early, “I really want to go to my bed already.” 

“What do you mean? You haven’t had a shower yet, at least go take one now before you sleep.” Jonghyun pushed the guy to help himself, but Dongho would always keep his head down. 

“Nah, I’ll do it tomorrow when I wake up.” He claimed, hopping off the counter, but Jonghyun stood tall in his way.

Without asking, the guy ruffled Donghos hair again, tangling it under his fingers. Dongho obeyed the sudden gesture and shrunk his head into his shoulders from the shame once realizing that his friend was probably checking how dirty it was. Jonghyun only proceeded by tilting the head down to bury his nose in it, seeing if it smelled of any shampoo.

Dongho was just about to start liking the feeling of having his head touched by someone, a feeling he actually hadn’t felt in months, as Minhyun was the only last person who had ever played with his hair. However, Jonghyun abruptly stopped and adamantly began to pull Dongho to the bathroom. 

Confused by the lack of instruction, Dongho didn’t stop his feet to follow the guy who then sat him directly on the edge of a bathtub. Moments later, Jonghyun had detached the showerhead and grabbed some shampoo. Dongho finally realized the jerks plan, but was powerless to protest, so he just let it happen.

Dongho lost his own shirt and as soon as the water began to run warm down his neck he shut his eyes and zone out, listening to the calming hum of the stream. 

Jonghyuns fingers disappeared inside of the wet curls lathering his friends scalp with foam. Even if Dongho absolutely hated this, it still undoubtedly felt nice to have someone touch his hair under the water set to warm.

Dongho blinked his tired eyes open to look up at the other man, who was effortlessly cleaning him with his lips sealed thin and tight.

He spoke in pity, “You don’t have to do this, you know? I can take care of myself.”

“I don’t trust you to care for yourself.” Jonghyuns snarky remark made Dongho crack up out of nowhere. “You are probably right.” He admit.

Dongho lowered his head to smile at his own two feet, looking at those naked toes of his wiggling above the puddle of water spreading north across the titled floor.

Jonghyun instantly raised Donghos head back up by tilting the chin and continued to rinse out his hair until it was done and washed properly. He never laughed or even smiled along, acting too focused and serious.

The sound of the water had stopped. Dongho realized he was now in his own bed, after he had blanked out for a few minutes, he was now getting tucked in by the other guy. Dongho had been spared his underwear and a sweatshirt before going bed, Jonghyun was dressed the same. He sat on the edge of the mattress with his knees up, checking his phone in the dark. The light of the device would illuminate a small part of the room.

The leader was in middle of reading a new text message on his screen, it was from Aaron and it read, “Hey, I am gonna stay at my friends house for tonight, Mingi is with me. Sorry for everything.” 

Aaron had texted instead of calling, perhaps he felt too guilty to show his face, or for that matter even his voice. Jonghyun felt like a fool for forgiving the guy as soon as the next hour, but he knew Aaron never meant to say what he said. Either way, it looked like Jonghyun and Dongho were going to be all alone in the dorm from now on, as the tallest didn’t expect for Aaron to return.

Jonghyun dropped his hand limp into his own lap and sighed at the ceiling, Dongho noticed his annoyed frown and assumed whatever troubled his friend was his fault. 

“What is it?” He asked, but Jonghyun didn’t wish to worry him with such things. “Nothing important.” The leader shot back, by also hiding the screen.

There was absolutely no indication what it was that Jonghyun was not going to show to Dongho on his phone. But in an instant Dongho made a crazy assumption. His eyes widened, big as a cat, and within the next second, he pounced to grab the same phone out of Jonghyuns hands, believing he had gotten a text from none other than Minhyun.

Jonghyun instantly understood the reason for the attack and grabbed his phone to his chest by dodging back, yelling at the other man, “It is not the person you want it to be!”

The man stopped his run and then slowly leaned back down into the pile of pillows that Jonghyun had built for him. “It’s from Aaron.” Jonghyun spoke, still coming down from his outburst.

Dongho could see that he had pissed off Jonghyun by the sudden appearance of wrinkles around his eyes. For the big guy it hurt to lose his last friend, Dongho believed he had now become just a good for nothing jerk who could never do anything right.

However, Jonghyun hadn’t yelled because he was angry, he did so because he was in fact very much jealous. Little by little, he was starting to despise Minhyun, who had left his friend behind like this. That guy didn’t deserve Dongho to blindly cry after him.

The short male saw his friend rise up and expected him to walk out, but instead Jonghyun sat himself down directly next to Dongho, deciding to hug him.

He was squished inside of Jonghyuns arms as if he were a teddy bear, a strong and protective grip had pulled him tight to Jonghyuns beating chest. The tallest poked the pointy end of his chin on top of Donghos forehead, nuzzling against his drying hair.

Dongho acted surprised, “You are so nice to me.” 

He was starting to realize that the guy was a friend who in fact loved him a lot, yet the idea of Jonghyun doing this because he loved him more than just a friend, was still far from ever crossing his mind. Jonghyun sometimes cursed Dongho in his mind for being this insanely blind.

Dongho looked up to Jonghyun with respect, he had always admired the leader, but at the same time, the guy had no idea that the same man admired him back ten times more.

Jonghyun had sensed how low and sleepy Donghos voice had gotten. A deep, pleasant tremor rang in his voice when he spoke a moment ago. Jonghyun never answered to the confusing compliment and let the man fall asleep on his shoulder. While he himself stayed up.

How could he find time to sleep, when all he could think of was his poor best friend who was always silently suffering beside him. If Jonghyun had known Minhyun would break the mans heart, he would had never allowed them to start dating in the first place.

Selfish thoughts began to cloud over his much more reasonable ones, for example, how now Minhyun was out of the picture and he could take care of Dongho instead. But it would be too soon and too selfish to take advantage of the guy while he was still confused and hurting. If Jonghyun did that, Aaron and Mingi would also be disappointed in him.

 

He closed his eyes and reminisced about the days where they were all still young and more careless. The times where all the scary things of the harsh idol industry didn’t scare them as much yet because they never believed that it would happen to them, around their debut. 

Jonghyun already liked Dongho back then too, even when his voice sounded much higher and he himself were much shorter.

The boys had dozed off in their managers car right after returning from a live stage performance. They were all still wearing their funky stage outfits, and smudged make up hadn’t been yet wiped from their faces. Everyone was tired, especially Dongho who had fallen asleep in middle of eating a snack, which left a melting chocolate stain across his mouth.

Jonghyun kept staring at the spot even while the driving car shook and trembled, speeding to their next schedule. It bothered him so much he couldn’t take his eyes off from the lips of the snoring male, wet mouthed male.

Minhyun raised his eyes from his phone to catch Jonghyun red handed – reaching a tissue to wipe that gaping, drooling opening belonging to his band mate. As per usual, he couldn’t hold his tongue and instantly called it out as it was happening in front of him.

A cunning smirk already decorated his face, “You can only do something like that to a person you like, Jonghyun.” Minhyun mocked his friend for the gesture that looked like it had come straight out of a rom-com flick.

“Yeah?” The young leader flopped back in his seat, crumpling the gross tissue inside of his clasped fist, “What if I do?” Jonghyun half joked.

The tallest youth grimaced in disgust, choosing to look out of the window instead. Jonghyun chuckled at his reaction and hid the tissue inside of his own jacket where he would later forget about it.

 

There was a sudden push that had ended Jonghyuns sleep, the sound of the mattress stretching in reaction to weight. 

Jonghyun began to wake from his dream of the past, even though he was reluctant to return to the bitter present. He looked around to make sure that Dongho was still there pressed to his shoulder, and he was, sleeping soundly like a baby.

Jonghyun would’ve smiled at the precious sight of it, if only not for that cursed thing Dongho would say to him in his sleep, that hurt worse than any pain je had felt.

“Minh— Minhyun." Dongho whined in a tiny voice.

A word so small, still pierced Jonghyuns heart like a painful arrow. Jonghyun couldn’t take it, he wanted to leave the room. Yet a grip squeezed his arm when he had moved away just slightly.

Donghos was sweaty from holding Jonghyuns arm in his sleep for long. The leader blinked his eyes more open to notice Donghos feverish face that came with his sweating palms, and his odd breathing. 

Jonghyun recalled the reason for him waking up had been the feeling of something grinding against him or moving with him in his sleep. So this was the reason Jonghyun had woken up.

Curious, he pulled back the blanket that had been pulled up to their necks and his eyes swung down faster than he could realize to stop himself from looking. The other guy was packing heat, probably having some kind of a dirty dream about the guy who’s name he kept repeating in his sleep.

Jonghyun regretted daring to look, but now after he had seen it, he couldn’t just ignore it. Jonghyun decided to wake him up instead of letting him suffer and squirm in his sleep. He went tugging on Donghos arm.

The sleepy male was barely able to lift his eyelids open, they only hanged halfway. He gave Jonghyun a confused, rather glassy eyed look, until it dawned upon him what was really happening to his wasted body.

“You— uhm.” Jonghyun stuttered out of nowhere, not being able to avoid looking at Donghos dreamy, masculine face in this very awkward moment.

“My bad,” Dongho scoffed, closing his eyes as if he didn’t mind it, “It’s fine, it’ll just go away.” He intended to go back to sleep without even acting embarrassed like Jonghyun.

His friend panicked to that decision because at that point it was painful to even look at. His underwear seemed like it was about to tear open any second, but yet the idiot was just laying there trying to think it away with just the power of will alone.

“What do you mean?” Jonghyun couldn’t even find the right words for this type of talk.

He had to swallow something in his nervous throat first before continuing, but he couldn’t get quite rid of it anyways, “Do you always normally just ignore that?”

Donghos eyes weren’t open enough to see how badly his friend was blushing when he clearly shouldn’t. The short male sighed and answered shortly, guessing he might as well since Jonghyun sounded rather interested today.

“I had a boyfriend before, you know? So, suddenly not having him with me now and doing it alone makes me feel like shit every time anyway.” He replied, sending Jonghyun into grave silence. 

“Sorry for too much information, dude.” Dongho chuckled to himself realizing he had probably grossed Jonghyun out just now.

“No need to apologize!” Jonghyun waved his hands in front of himself. It’s not like it was hard for him to imagine what the two dudes were doing in their locked bedrooms after having dated each other for well over four to five years.

Dongho smiled on his way out before the sleepiness swallowed his next string of words, and then his face shifted back into that lonely stare.

The jerk was actually about to return to sleeping. Jonghyun knew he had to say something now before his friend could fully fall asleep again.

“Hey, Dongho?” He took a pause before continuing, because what he was about to say was surely going to sound really weird.

“Can I do it for you?” Jonghyun offered in the kindest voice he could put on. Dongho didn’t think for long, after all, he was too tired to think straight and sad enough to not care.

They were both dudes, friends, best buds who were always there for one another for when the right times called. Dongho supposed. So this didn’t even count as anything weird between friends, plus it wasn’t like he was dating anyone anymore, so who cares. The guy nodded, letting out a grunt that was supposed to sound like a yes.

This was platonic, it should be like that and nothing more. Just like when Jonghyun was washing out Donghos hair from him, he was just taking care of his friend. Jonghyun told himself.

The tallest was hesitant, but eventually and with a lot of courage, his hand did dip down on his best friends lap with the best intentions to just pat him through his clothes. He carefully ran his fingers across the thin underwear fabric that separated skin from his palm, making Dongho let out a wailed hiss. To him the fabric was an unpleasant obstacle that turned any good touch into a burn.

On the inside his underwear had become sweaty and sticky, stretched to cup his skin like some hellish friction trap. Jonghyun figured that had no choice, but to slide it down. The man turned his finger into a hook and pulled, causing everything to come spilling out at once.

Dongho was red and heated, his skin glistening and already wet to the hand. When Jonghyun held it, the boy began to breathe in and out a whole lot harder. His eyes had parted slightly to see the man who’s hand was jerking him off, and he moved his lips to whisper, but now even the shifting of the skin in that hollow room was louder than any noise the bewitched Dongho could ever make.

Jonghyun could already tell that Dongho was just trying to call out Minhyuns name instead of his. The guy was probably imagining that guy in his place too and Jonghyun hated it, but because the faces that the man kept making were making the pain worth it.

Donghos face wore the expression of bliss – a long forgotten sensation he hadn’t felt in ages probably. The fact that Jonghyun was the one causing the guy to be this way was making the tallest feel intoxicated by the idea.

“This feels good for you, right?” Jonghyun let the devil sitting on his shoulder speak for him.

The weaker man didn’t notice the flirtatious tone in Jonghyuns question, he had lost his focus. “Don’t stop, okay?” Dongho begged him. He had become unable to lift his own limbs and now sat at mercy of his best friend viciously flicking his wrist.

Jonghyun realized what he had just said, and made himself look away in shame, “I won’t— I won’t.” He reassured his friend by repeating.

His fingers pulled together tighter, while his other hand had been palming Donghos heated tummy, as if he was healing a bellyache. Even there the guy was wet from sweating. 

In fact, Dongho already smelled of sweat, his feverish body burned as if it were on fire, producing this hot, damp and musky scent that tickled Jonghyuns nose. In this context he liked it, Jonghyun thought that there might be something wrong with him because of it.

His hand would quicken, and Donghos steamy breaths would thus come frequent and his hips even buck themselves up a little. The man forgot how to be quiet and in Jonghyuns presence let out countless whimpering groans and pleased sighs.

The tallest found it difficult to avert his gaze from the body of the other man anymore. So it only took Jonghyun another happy whine to come from Donghos mouth to make him completely snap and lose all reason. Out of a sudden, Jonghyun had stopped his touches.

The man walked his knees backwards and rode his body low, stopping his head directly looming over Donghos lap looking like he had something planned. Jonghyun slowly stared up at Dongho with the biggest, anxious eyes asking him for some kind of a permission.

Jonghyun acted upon instinct rather than rational thought, but perhaps he never had any rationality to begin with, because if he did then he would have been wise enough to not lay in the same bed with the person whom he has had harnessed a supressed crush for years. He assumed for himself.

Now he had an urge to go even further than this, to do more than just give a guy a mindless hand job. If he were to relieve his friend, then he wanted to send him into the clouds.

Dongho stared down at the other with those same droopy eyes from before that had not changed, he did so for a long moment, but Jonghyun could tell that he wasn’t actually thinking too hard about it, if he was even thinking anything at all.

Instead of a vocal answer, Dongho reached to slip his fingers into Jonghyuns hair and nudge the guys head towards himself, almost close enough for his lips to make an impact. There was no question, no second thought, and moments later the two men were already allowing it.

Two hands carefully creeped around the mans dick, fingers almost trembling while holding it in hand. Jonghyun sent a quick glare at Dongho before his lips kissed the tip. The shorter male kept his sights on his friend and watched more of his length gradually disappear behind those lightly parted lips.

Dongho made a hissing sound, but this time it came from a place of satisfaction. He was already pretty close to a release before he met the wet heat of his leaders mouth, but this completely sent him over the edge. Jonghyun slipped his lips more open and sunk his head down, taking his friends shape into his mouth.

Soon the loudest panting came close to almost sounding like wheezing, one of the mans tattooed arms yanked to throw itself above his own head looking to grab something that wasn’t there. Jonghyun wasn’t distracted by any of it, he had become busy, thrusting his head down as much as he knew how making the thick length of the dick crush into the tight throat of his.

It was already so hot and pooling inside of Jonghyuns mouth. Any minute now, Jonghyun began to count his seconds. In his plight, the shortest man began to mouth sounds, noises that would warn his friend not to stop. 

However in that extreme moment, an unexplainable sense of dread had came over Jonghyun. He begged in his own head for Dongho to please not call him the wrong name – not right now.

“Jonghyun.” Dongho cried out. “Jonghyun, so good.” 

He continued to repeat that name, and it suit his mouth so well. The tall boy was in love with hearing his own name break from Donghos lips while he was being made feel good.

Dongho broke into a gasp, one that made his voice sound all light and high. A hot sensation burned from the pit of his stomach, and the next thing he felt was that he was free, his body had lifted from the mattress to launch into the clouds. 

The tallest slouched forwards to help himself gag down all of Dongho. His eyes winced shut to save himself from choking on the release. Assuming that maybe the poor guy had actually not done this in quite a bit.

Jonghyun retreated, instantly wiping his wet lips of evidence that would prove the recent act. Suddenly he became so horrified by what had just happened, because he feared Donghos reaction would be regret or disgust. It made his stomach do flips before he had even looked to see the mans face of aftermath.

Yet there wasn’t any regret on Donghos face, nothing like that. He looked exhausted and dazed, yet content. Dongho focused looking at Jonghyun for the longest moment, until his body gave up and he fell into slumber.

Jonghyun didn’t know what to do now, but his body had already decided to rush into a hug. Jonghyun laid down, ear pressed on top of Donghos chest and winced his eyes shut to prevent the idea of concern appear before him.

 

The next morning Dongho was the one to wake up first after what seemed like the best sleep he has had in months. Donghos first minute of being awake was spent by him staring up at the ceiling and thinking of someone else. He sat up, looking to his side and for a hot minute he had not expected to find Jonghyun there.

The confusing memories of what had happened last night all raced back to him at once, yet he wasn’t so afraid of them. Instead he felt rather guilty for wishing that he had done it with his ex instead, because it was unfair to treat Jonghyun that way.

Why did his friend do that, Dongho asked himself. Did Jonghyun really pity him that much and this was his way of trying to make Dongho feel better about himself, his thoughts were conflicting.

Jonghyun wasn’t the type of guy to do this. He never showed interest in dating and never talked about himself, because it made him shy. But that image of him was not something Dongho had seen last night, like Jonghyun had been keeping that side of him a secret.

To be honest, for a split second there Dongho had considered running away before Jonghyun could wake up, but as soon as the other man began to shift legs in his sleep Dongho sat as still as a statue. Jonghyun slowly fluttered open his still sleepy eyelashes, his head had been perfectly in the morning would be Dongho.

Upon seeing him, Jonghyun tensed up and instantly sat up in bed. Luckily Dongho didn’t look sad or angry after yesterday, but still there was no way around it, no way to pretend what they had done last night didn’t exist.

They waited for either one to start speaking first. “Hey, about yesterday.” As per usual, Jonghyun was the bravest of the two, but Dongho tried to seem braver, “I should apologize.” He randomly cut in.

His ridiculously quick apology obviously made Jonghyun sigh, “What for? I’m the one who did it.” 

“I mean, you just must have gotten confused, right?” Dongho tried to defend his friend, but instead by doing so he had instead offended him.

Jonghyun knew what he did, and he knew that he wasn’t simply confused to do such a thing to Dongho. He loved him.

Dongho who was previously not looking at him at all, finding peace by looking down at the ground, slowly turned to face him, “It didn’t mess anything up for us? We still cool, right?” He worried.

Jonghyuns speech became deep to hide his dissatisfaction, “Yeah, were still – cool.” He spat out, spitefully and rather sarcastically.

Failing to notice Jonghyun was upset, Dongho brightened up a bit by making a glad smile, “Nothing has changed. That’s a relief.” 

Even more angry with the world, Jonghyun didn’t hold back to speak what was actually on his mind next, “I kinda wished it did.” 

Dongho was taken aback. “What do you mean?” The man obviously did not understand Jonghyuns mean, angry glare pointing at him.

The tallest sighed once more, pulling some air into his lungs before making it known and saying what he really wished to say. “It means that I have feelings for you, jerk.” He confessed.

Donghos pupils became as round as a coin, one word formed across his face as it was – why. 

“I like you – no, I’ve liked you for a very long time, and I guess now it would be both the best and the worst time to let you know that.” Jonghyun added.

The shortest male had to collect himself, things in his head had fallen out of the shelves. His nervous eyes started to shift to the side and fingers became needy to pluck and pick anything in sight.

“Really? I mean—” Dongho swallowed his words of doubt and disbelief. Jonghyun wouldn’t be lying about something like this no matter how unbelievable it sounded.

“I am sorry, I just really didn’t know?” He spoke. Meanwhile, Jonghyun didn’t like the fact that the man was apologizing already, as if preparing to turn him down.

However, he really hadn’t been expecting anything other than rejection from the guy. Dongho was still hurting and in love with another, so it was foolish for Jonghyun to assume he even had a chance.

Donghos voice shot up again, anxious and as if he was the one making the confession himself, “Why do you, like—me?”

As stupid as it sounds, originally Dongho had just assumed that Jonghyun didn’t even like people at all. He always saw him as one of those guys that were already married to their work. Jonghyun was a leader, and he took his job seriously. So the fact that his leader would like a person like him, hadn’t crossed Donghos mind once.

“Because of the same reasons the last guy did, I suppose.” Jonghyun bought up Minhyun again. Somehow, every conversation they had always lead back to that guy.

Jonghyun knew he couldn’t ever compare himself to Minhyun, and that Dongho had never seen him as anything more than an older brother figure or his mentor of sorts, even thought they were the same age.

Without even realizing it, all this time Jonghyun had been staring at Dongho. His looked eyes angry and demanding to the other, Dongho felt like he was pressured to make a choice, little did he know, Jonghyun was just hoping to hear a quick – no. So they could just get this awful interaction done and over with finally.

The nervous adult sitting before Jonghyun rushed to give it some thought first. He considered that, if he began dating Jonghyun, perhaps he would forget about Minhyun quicker, but then that would also be cruel to his own friend. He would be practically using Jonghyun, someone he didn’t even love back, just to get his mind off from someone else.

Dongho didn’t feel right dating anyone after Minhyun. Even if they had already broken up, it still felt like it would somehow be cheating if he did. In his mind he was still dating the memory of his ex boyfriend, secretly hoping that the man would still come back.

Jonghyun got tired of waiting, he shot his chin away to exhale the stale air kept in his lungs and spoke in place of Dongho. “Don’t sweat it, I am not asking you to date me because of what we did.” He carried on, “I’m just telling you this, because after last night you deserve to know about it.”

Dongho spoke in panicked and unfair voice, “But what about you? Are you going to get over it?” He worried for the other, knowing how bad it hurt to have the one you love not love you back.

For Jonghyun it was impossible to just forget about what he felt for his vocalist. Dongho wasn’t just some childish crush for him anymore. “Eventually, maybe.” He lied.

Dongho became quiet again, his fingers digging holes into the blanket that had kept them two warm overnight. “Since when did you start—feeling that way?” He asked.

“Maybe when we were fifteen, or sixteen. I don’t really remember.” Jonghyun admitted.

Dongho reacted in shock. This meant that Jonghyun has been hiding his feelings for as long as they basically knew one another, even when while Minhyun was dating Dongho, Jonghyun had been in the background giving the two his blessings.

He felt bad for Jonghyun, and although not much could’ve been done about it, Dongho wished he had somehow known this sooner.

“Do you pity me?” Jonghyun had read his mind, a guilty red blush took over Donghos face. Jonghyun found himself nodding at the visual confirmation.

Out of nowhere, he shortest suddenly straddled both of his hands around Jonghyuns forearm, scared that the man would leave now after their discussion. “Jonghyun, wait.” He yelped.

His grip was tight and painful, desperate to make Jonghyun stay and listen. “Can I—” His lips moved, but it was his throat that was not working.

Dongho readied himself again to try to say it for the second time, “I want to try kissing you.”

Jonghyun raised a confused brow, “You do?” He didn’t believe it, assuming Dongho was doing something he clearly didn’t want to just because he felt bad for his friend and was also an idiot.

Donghos left hand remained in a grip, but his right slowly became loose, driving up to Jonghyuns elbow. Dongho picked up his sights and looked at the face of Jonghyun, the same face he had seen the night prior, and tried to picture all of it happening again.

Jonghyun didn’t expect the jackass to actually do what he had described. His frown was erased and replaced with the look of shock once Dongho leaned in to meet their mouths. A hand held him in place by the nape of his neck.

The shortest male was kneeling in front of Jonghyun, his legs nested above his friends, neck dipped down to meet the same height.

Jonghyun soon had closed his eyes, willingly sinking into the embrace. Their lips stood parted yet locked in place, neither of them had moved for a very long while.

To help them keep the same gentle position longer, Jonghyun landed his freed hand on the back of Donghos waist, but instead it would cause the larger man to get frightened and tumble. The clumsy man pushed his friend backwards into the pile of pillows by falling on top of him, mewling into Jonghyuns mouth when they both had crashed down.

Their lips stayed connected, but the friction caused by the sudden fall had made a spark set off between them. Dongho actually initiated more by tilting his head a little bit, so he could really kiss his leader. It was nothing rough, in fact it was so warm and gentle that it felt more like Jonghyun was kissing a cloud.

Up to this point, Jonghyun had allowed himself to like Dongho, because it was something he couldn’t fight. But the way he liked his best friend had been only platonic, any other feelings or emotions towards him had successfully supressed. But because of this they were slowly resurfacing, and it was so hard to just not grab the control from Dongho and kiss him until he becomes sore.

Another reason Jonghyun never imagined ever holding or kissing Dongho the way he was doing now, was because back then even if nobody could ever read the filthy things appearing in his mind, he would be betraying Minhyun by fantasizing about his boyfriend – it would be wrong.

Yet that exact obstacle was gone now, and there was nothing to stop Jonghyun from being evil and greedy. Gradually, he let those things take over him.

The hand that previously had held Dongho by the back of his waist rode up his spine, dragging the undershirt up along with it to expose the mans long tan back to the ceiling of the room. Jonghyun grabbed the shirt into a knot, wishing his fingers could somehow rip it apart.

Jonghyuns eyes opened wide to the sky, yet he was blind to see when blood was rushing to his head so quickly that he had become lightheaded. Dongho let go of his lips which had by then turned red and almost swollen, and breathed against his cheek instead.

Dongho had made a small pause, and when Jonghyun tuned back in he figured out why – there were footsteps coming from outside the room, someone was home.

Dongho and Jonghyun both quickly sat up when remembering that the room door was not locked or anything and anyone could just walk in on them being dirty with one another. It was probably just the other two who had come home overnight, but it would suck if it were their manager or something.

Jonghyun wiped his licked wet lips clean of Donghos mark, and the other man did the same to himself. There was this awkward feeling of afterglow that they both now shared. The realization that what they did indeed felt good, even thought it was wrong.

Dongho learned to be avoidant of Jonghyuns eyes, and returned to wearing that same old sad expression on his face. Jonghyun had already predicted why.

“You imagined Minhyun in my place just now, didn’t you?” Jonghyuns question made Donghos fingers and toes curl up and hide in the sheets. 

Donghos fingernails purposely stuck themselves deep into the fabric to the point it hurt. Because of how right Jonghyuns guess had been and how ashamed of it Dongho was, he wanted to punish himself by breaking those fingers of his.

“I am sorry.” He spoke silently, full of regret. 

“Ah, it’s fine.” Jonghyun smiled at his friend, but the other man could tell it was forced, “Let’s not do this again.” The leader said.

Donghos voice couldn’t sound more sad, “Sorry.”

 

Jonghyun had walked out of a shower soon after he had left Donghos room first. His hair was wet and over his eyes, a tower draped behind his neck to guard his newly put on sweatshirt from getting more soaked. 

Without paying too much attention, he had accidentally bumped into one of his fellow dorm mates, who reacted with a scared gasp.

Jonghyun swept the water and strands of hair from his eyes, finding no one other than Mingi standing at his feet with folded clothes hanging over his arm. The leader stared down at his friend holding all of his favourite shirts at once to figure out if he was planning of going somewhere and just not tell him.

Mingi clutched his stuff dear to his chest spawning a mean grimace at Jonghyun. “Why are you packing up all of a sudden?” The leader didn’t mind asking.

A baffled snort came from Mingi, “Are you serious? I should be the one asking you why aren’t you packing yet.”

“What’s wrong?” Jonghyun suddenly spoke much lower, closer to Mingis ear just so nobody could overhear their argument. Obviously while Mingi and Aaron were gone for the night somewhere else, the two had talked and decided things behind Jonghyuns back without telling him.

Mingi made the look of a hissing cat, in disbelief that Jonghyun was too blind to notice what was happening around. He vent, “Tell me a thing that isn’t wrong right now?”

“Our bosses have not said a damn word to us. We have been kept in the dark about the future of this group, while our contracts are up in only just a few months.” Mingi almost yelled in anger.

His frustrations were loud, how could they not be. Being part of a group was the only life Mingi had ever known. The word disbandment would previously terrify him, but now he had been forced to accept it as the sole reality.

Mingi who was usually always so cheerful and optimistic was now speaking in a cruel and pessimistic tone – it really put things into perspective for Jonghyun. As bad as it sounded, he now realized how everyone had already given up on their dreams.

Mingi glanced away to collect himself after yelling, and with that his voice calmed too. “Aaron said he wants to go back to states for college, and I’m thinking about continuing my studies too.” He confessed.

Jonghyun had gone mute, he knew a day like this where everyone would abandon the idea of being a group would come, but it still hurt regardless.

“You too should pick what you want to do while you still can.” Mingi advised while trying to sound kind, but right now he wasn’t. Jonghyun had noticed the stare that Mingi was giving him, the youngest looked at him with disgust and hatred in his eyes. 

As Mingi dashed away from his sight, Jonghyun realized how the mans hurried footsteps sounded exactly like the ones that had interrupted him and Dongho before. So Jonghyun figured that Mingi probably had seen them together through the slightly parted door of their bedroom.

 

The weather outside was supposed to be similar to a summer, but despite the yellowed grass slowly sprouting back to life around the city parks and birds flocking to take up space sitting side to side onto the wire poles, the chilling cold made it seem like the time was still stuck in winter.

Jonghyun was wearing his thickest spring coat. Dongho had put on a jacket with a grey hoodie underneath. Together the two stood in the public city bus going somewhere. 

Dongho usually never left their dorm that much anymore, so whenever he asked Jonghyun to take him somewhere, the leader accompanied him without asking where. This time it was like that too.

Through the entire ride, Dongho stared out the window towards the glowing sun, watching familiar streets and buildings flash by his eyes. Jonghyun had been watching Dongho instead, for him it was the prettier than any other scenery.

Soon enough the shortest noticed his love-struck stare, and shortly glanced back to smile at him, precious and wide. Their shared smiles quickly went away after a short minute, but it regardless it was a minute of happiness for the two. An emotion they both lacked. 

Dongho asked to hop off at a park near a TV broadcasting station, Jonghyun supposed that the guy had come to soak himself in nostalgia, and be bringing back memories of back when they were still promoting. Only except, out of five people back then, it was just the two of them that still remained.

Their deadline was up soon this March that was just around the corner. After seven years of being signed, they would have to re-sign again. Mingi and Aaron weren’t going to do so and Minhyun was all over TV to the point Jonghyun had gotten sick of seeing his face. It was evident that guy who was basking in fame and future potential didn’t want to return either.

Dongho skipped walking through the park and taking in the spring scenery with him like Jonghyun had hoped he would, and instead began to walk off with a rather fast strut.

“Wait up, where are you running?” Jonghyun hated to jog, Dongho stopped to wait for him and then just took him by the hand so they could walk faster together.

Dongho still wasn’t telling him to where he was off to, and while Jonghyun did find it a bit worrisome before, now that they held hands it wasn’t so scary anymore. Jonghyuns fingers almost didn’t with to let his friend to slip away.

They turned and entered an alleyway, a gap in between two concrete buildings, dirty and vandalized. Jonghyun carefully followed Dongho without interrupting to see how deep would the rabbit hole go.

Dongho stopped at the building wall appearing to look for something, Jonghyun joined him. Of course Jonghyun wouldn’t know this place since he had never been here, but Dongho had a very dear memories of this certain dark spot.

Years back, him and Minhyun had written out their names on this very wall, promising to never be apart and as it turned out to this day their mark still stood there, although it had now faded with age.

At this point Dongho didn’t care if his band mate saw it, because he had come here just to destroy it, so he wouldn’t have a reason to remember that promise anymore.

Jonghyuns eyes became sad at the sight of Dongho ghosting his hand over the two first name initials matching Minhyuns and Donghos. If he had known what this was about then he wouldn’t have come.

He continued to watch as Dongho proceeded to take out a marker from his jean pocket, and began to scribble away at the wall like he despised it. Soon nothing was left of the original writing, just a black scribble that made no sense.

Dongho had thought it would fix something, and that by doing this he would feel better, but just as always, no matter how many physical reminders of Minhyun he tried to get rid of, he still couldn’t get over him.

Dongho returned the marker to his pocket and told Jonghyun that he wanted to go home now. 

The leader stared back into that dark alleyway just once before going, strange feeling of sadness overtook him too. He remembered that same night as well, only he was the one secretly watching the two lovers from afar.

 

The dorm was dark again, lights were always out since Aaron and Mingi had moved out a long time ago. Jonghyun had tried to fix his relationship with them before they had left, but in the end they all decided that maybe the best thing to do was not to.

Everyone was hurting badly because of the looming disbandment. They loved each other dearly, but now it was the time to learn how to live apart – start over with their lives.

In middle of the night, Jonghyun was woken out of his sleep by the last remaining roommate who had snuck in again. Dongho did this from time to time, but the next morning he always never remembered doing so. His body was controlled by constant nightmares. The best thing Jonghyun could cure him with was to wake him up to forcefully return him into a reality, which Dongho often deemed even worse than those same nightmares.

Tonight, like many other nights he had made it into Jonghyuns bed to hug him, and waking him up by calling out a different mans name. Of course in his sleep Dongho couldn’t realize how much it hurt Jonghyun whenever he did this, but these nights it was becoming so hard to forgive him.

“Wake up.” Jonghyun ordered, his voice strict and commanding. “Kang Dongho, wake up.”

The sleepy boy began to blink open his lashes that had been glued shut from crying in his sleep. Gross snot and smudged trails of tears were all over his face, Dongho was such a miserable sight.

“Minhyun?” The vocalist called out into the dark where he couldn’t see the speaker.

“I am not him.” Jonghyun warned the other for the last time. He didn’t want to be cruel kick the crying man out of his room, but hearing Dongho cry over that jerk hurt Jonghyun worse than a stab. 

Dongho was not listening, the voice speaking to jim sounded nothing like Minhyun, but he so desperately wanted for it to be his, “I need you, Minhyun.” He repeated nonstop.

He crawled up to where Jonghyun was, hugging arms around him tight. The man was squeezing with so much strength, he was using all his sickly body strength that he still had left to hold the false Minhyun back from leaving him again. 

The real Minhyun was long gone, but Dongho still loved the memories of him, that way it was as if he had left for no longer than a day, even though it was soon to be almost two years already. The grief had ruined who Dongho was, it had already swallowed him. 

Jonghyuns voice dropped, weak and defeated to have to repeat himself, “I am not—”

Dongho understood that his lover was gone as soon as he had looked up and seen Jonghyuns face, but in his mind he would simply put Minhyuns face over it, pretending it was him for just another minute longer to relive at least an ounce of happiness that he had lost.

Without thinking, Dongho raised his chin to kiss the other man on the spot, pressing his lips on top of his friends with little protest coming from him. Even if finally being able to kiss Dongho was like a literal dream come true for Jonghyun, he soon began to resist it by gently pushing the confused man away. 

“Hang on, you got the wrong person.” Jonghyun reminded Dongho he had been sorely mistaken.

“I am sorry.” The boy realized this and apologized. So just as quickly Jonghyun apologized back to him, like he always did, “It’s okay, I should have stopped you sooner.”

After silence Jonghyun spoke up, “I like you Dongho. I really wished you liked me too one day.” 

The short male lowered his chin in sorrow. He understood Jonghyun, yet his heart was still thinking about someone else and it was so unfair to them both.

Dongho accepted that he was a jerk and he would just keep hurting his friend, but his mind had become too messed up to care about who he was actually embracing, because as long as he closed his eyes and made himself believe that it was someone different, he finally felt at ease.

It was wrong of him, but he just wanted to continue pretending this one time. He even swore to himself that this would be the last time. 

“Will you forgive me, just this once?” Dongho apologized, arching his head back to kiss the edge if Jonghyuns mouth that somewhat resembled Minhyuns to him.

Ultimately, Jonghyun gave in to allow him if that did make it better. He allowed it even if his own heart was tied up in the most painful of knots. 

The tall male let his friend straddle his thighs on top of Jonghyuns lap by pulling into a wet, rough kiss. The speed at which the two two men glued themselves together made it majorly evident about how much they both were starved for this touch.

Dongho would groan and make a pleasant sound soon into the kiss, but Jonghyun forced Dongho not pull away, so that way he wouldn’t have to hear Dongho accidentally call him by Hwangs name. The shortest mistook this rough treatment as an invitation to do the same, deepening his kisses until they seemed almost competitive in-between the two men.

The leader rolled his lips over the others, licking into his mouth and parting it for himself to explore. Jonghyun was gently chewing and biting the other mans bottom lip at times, holding himself back from making marks. 

Every time sharp teeth rode over Donghos teased bottom lip, the bigger male let out an almost cat like sound – a whine mixed with a high pitched moan accompanied with bucking of the hips.

After endless minutes of this bliss, it had become impossibly hard to breathe for the both of them. Deprived of oxygen Dongho forcefully arched his head back and away from the kiss. His chin was slick with a thin layer of drool, reflecting under the dim light of the night.

Jonghyun adored the rare sight, and ended up losing the last of his mind just by what he was seeing. Donghos neck was slender and long, his masculine jawline looked a little pointy from an angle.

Jonghyun didn’t wait for Dongho to return his lips to him again, and instead rushed to claim his neck, pretending that the man had always belonged to him and not anyone else.

The shortest whined, tilting his head away from the sudden wet sensation, prickly and unpleasant at first, and then smooth and hot seconds later. Jonghyuns tongue found the most ticklish spots there, his soft lips folded up against the skin and sucked deep, lasting kisses.

Seemingly, this had already become something more than just mindless kissing to help Dongho relive memories of his ex. Jonghyuns touch was so different from Minhyuns, and the reality was staring to feel better than the picture in Donghos mind, he now craved more of these nice caresses.

This made Dongho recall the other night, the one he even barely rememberes now, when him and Jonghyun had been caring and intimate, and how nice it was back then too. Feelings of that night all came flooding back to him at once, and he became urged to be that way with Jonghyun again – Him and no one else.

In response to Jonghyuns hungry neck kisses, Dongho began riding his hips back and forth across Jonghyuns lap, grinding him through underwear on purpose, trying to send the message that he wanted him. 

However his body soon became lost in waves of movement, he was unable to stop until the leader would respond. 

Meanwhile Jonghyun had no idea at first, his mind had gone blank and lips and tongue became made only for biting hickeys into Donghos pretty tan neck.

The man at the top was feeling hotter and hotter every minute, his knees were growing weak but hips would not stop clashing with Jonghyuns. The fabric stung and burned when it pulled and yanked back, but right now any friction was good friction.

Jonghyun was responsive too. Dongho could feel him growing harder underneath himself. The shapes of their bodies became sticky to one another, rubbing in to fill the gaps of every crease and fold in between them.

Dongho broke from the teasing neck kisses to lean forwards a bit, pressing their chests together. His ass then stuck out while still trying to roll into Jonghyun, prompting the other man to take hold of it with both hands.

The fabric of Donghos underwear was stretched way far back there, Jonghyun could feel literally everything underneath like there was nothing separating him. His fingers creeped further down, hooking under to try to lift him up.

Dongho was heavy, not going anywhere. The guy had become addicted to dry humping his friend like it was his only purpose of being. With each attempted thrust, their chests would happily grind and slide on one another. Dongho was more sensitive, so the undershirt that stretched thin across his wide frame was now giving him an additional friction burn.

“Fu—ck” Dongho grunt into the ear of the other, with that his thrusts sped up and he was going harder. The fabric of his briefs now actually hurt, but his body would become worse if he ever stopped movement. He was in a total haze.

Dongho kept leaning forwards even if there was no space to, his eyes becoming more glassy and teary. Jonghyun squeezed his hands where they had been placed and it made the man yelp.

Jonghyun tried to mute his cute whines by reaching to kiss his mouth shut, but even if the guy surely wanted to, Dongho physically couldn’t kiss him back. The guy felt too many things in too many places at once, every inch of his body was burning and feeling strange and he undoubtedly wanted more of it.

Dongho backed his ass up, feeling Jonghyuns shape through his briefs pouncing at his ass like he was being teased or tortured – what he wanted was being kept away under layers of clothing. So Donghos moans began to sound more like cries overtime.

Jonghyun supposed that the man liked what was being done to him and bounced him up higher. He angled his fingers differently, apart and outward, squeezing the dudes behind and making him cry for it even more. Jonghyuns dick was showing from his underwear, thrusting into him as if there was no underwear that separated their skin from clashing.

The leader stared up at the man hugged to his chest, wondering if Dongho still saw him as Minhyun after this, or if he had stopped caring. It would be so sweet if he did manage to make Dongho forget about him for at least a minute.

The shortest whined, dropping his head onto Jonghyuns shoulder as if he could no longer take it, “Can you please, remove it?” He begged.

“Remove? Oh.” Jonghyun acted surprised, as if he didn’t realize what he had made of the other man already. “Are you sure?” He asked twice.

Dongho spoke with pauses, breathing like he had been running, “Yeh, p—please?” 

Jonghyun was lost, sad and turned on all at the same time, but he couldn’t decide if they should take it from here, even if they both wanted to do this so badly right now, it would benefit neither.

He decided that for him to allow it, he just needed one thing from Dongho. “Call me by my name instead of his.” Jonghyun asked, never expecting for Dongho to say it back so soon.

“Jonghyun—Jonghyun, please hurry. Jonghyun.” Dongho winced his dewy, sultry eyes, smiling at the other man.

His own name, it sounded so good when it came from those lips that he had just kissed, Jonghyun couldn’t get over it. Actually, Dongho had already been seeing Jonghyun as himself this whole time, so it was not a problem for him to fulfil that simple request.

The tallest tossed himself and Dongho over in the sheets, with the bigger guy down pinned under him. They were both rushing to remove all clothing that was in the way and stopped to realize where they now stood only after seeing each other naked, bodies equally sweaty and sore.

The leader took a second glance at him to take in the sight that he had previously not allowed himself to ever even think of. Perhaps Dongho had lost plenty of weight and muscle that he used to have once before, but Jonghyun still liked him even like this, and he couldn’t take his eyes off from him. Jonghyun then stalled completely.

“Jonghyun?” Dongho asked where the man had gone. In wait, he had began squirming and attempting to close his thighs.

“Right here.” Jonghyun replied.

The leader snuck his hands around the man knees and broke them apart again, not minding his stare when everything was exposed and in plain sight. Jonghyuns eyes followed the beautiful geometry of the other mans much larger, wider body. He noticed little changes in colour across the body, every ridge and valley of skin collecting sweat. Jonghyun continued to glare down as if he were hungry.

His eyes looked scary, like that of a wolf, yet his touch was slow and cautious, it could be because he was observing his prey before making an attack. But his fingers ghosted over Donghos heated blushing skin with only the best intentions.

The tallest kept a spare bottle of lube lying around in his room for emergencies. He hadn’t used it yet, but for some reason the seal had already come off and with these passing days it had been gradually becoming less and less on its own overtime. Almost as if some other bastard had been secretly chugging it down – only one suspect could easily come to mind.

“Do I need to guide your hand?” Dongho joked, noticing the hesitation Jonghyun had when it came to figuring out what he should do next with his already well lubed hand.

The guy sounded surprisingly coy despite his current position, he was sitting there just mocking Jonghyuns lack of expertise while the same guy was in middle of breaking the skin with his fingers.

Dongho whined when his body felt a foreign feeling pass inside, and his arms stretched to reach Jonghyun for safety. It was was cold and wet, entering and leaving, moving in circles and bending inside of him.

Jonghyun had dipped his face low to hover above his friend, so that the guy wouldn’t have to look at anything else, but him. He did so just to make sure that he would get out every and last bit of Minhyun out of the mans head.

Suddenly Dongho arched his spine to the right, Jonghyun supposed that he had found a good spot just then. He slicked his finger out and slowly worked two back in, widening and closing two fingers at once. The body twitched and squeezed around them, like it was fighting back, but eventually Jonghyun felt he could proceed.

“Feeling alright?” Jonghyun withdrew from the other mans body, Dongho groaned in response, not used to the sensation of being emptied and stripped of warmth.

The big guy teased, “Not until you put it in me, jackass.” Jonghyun laughed a little and went to obey the command by positioning his hips in place.

Dongho managed to take a quick glance at Jonghyuns huge hard dick standing in front of him and winked his eyes to big. Jonghyun didn’t realize what his reaction truly meant and assumed it was because he had seen the guy take out a condom.

Jonghyun found the room for a joke, “I don’t to catch whatever disease Minhyun has.” He explained how he worried that after fucking Dongho, he would wake up ten times stupider the next day. The other man frowned and stared away, trying not to laugh at the same thing too.

The tallest man was ready, as well as the body below, ass now stretched and red, slick so much lube that it lead a trail into the sheets. Dongho was laying down with his thighs hinged wide open like two pillows each holding Jonghyun from either side.

Jonghyun followed the same wet stream, creeping his dick up the crack to point at his hole that would twitch to any touch or cold, warm sensation bought near it. The tallest groaned at the sight, rolling his hips forward to bring his wet dick right into the body his childhood best friend.

When he broke the skin, Dongho gasped sharp, but his voice quickly fell as if his vocal cords had melted in an instant, and his face became happy.

“Jonghyun.” The man called his friend by the name without a reason. Another wave of a sharp stinging sensation came and he repeated it, “Jonghyun.”

When it got to the widest point, Dongho made a louder yelp, and even though he so desperately tried to hide behind the back of his hand from his friend, Donghos pained face still exposed him. It burned and stung, but not too bad.

“What’s wrong? Does it still hurt?” Jonghyun dropped everything at once, stopping any movement. Why did he always have to act so polite and leader like, Dongho hated it at times.

Dongho was shaking his head, “No, you’re just—” He made another painful facial expression and exhaled, “Big.” 

The guy finished his thought by making a mischievous smile, slowly growing to endure and like it. Jonghyun could hold back a laugh, but he still couldn’t supress his cheeks from turning red, 

“Just tell me when you want me to stop.” He advised. “Uh-huh.” Dongho arched his back into a better spot and pretended to agree, despite the fact that he did not foresee to be making such a request in his lifetime.

Jonghyun made sure to count a few seconds in his head before second attempt, pushing his weight in and dragging out before there was a set rhythm to it. Dongho let out a long whine, and his legs started to kick to lock around Jonghyuns hips.

The two men had leaned down, becoming stuck together. The wet, sweaty skin of their heated bodies pulled together and slid over one another. Donghos chest had become a glistening pool of water, like it had been oiled, his tights and legs refused to be held into a grip the same way.

The heat was killing them both and they had only just gotten this far, imaginary clouds of steam fled from their wet, slightly parted mouths as they pant in union. As Jonghyun rolled his hips forwards and back, both men made sweet noises only to be heard by the walls of the emptied dorm.

Donghos body only felt tighter and hotter with each thrust, by that point those pushes that Jonghyun sent his way had become a mess of both slowed down movements and quick, vicious ones.

Places across Donghos skin where Jonghyun had been were now marked by hand and fingerprint marks, hickeys and bites that stood out like a beautiful pattern.

Donghos sore dick bounced in place each time Jonghyun crashed into him and there was no one to hold it. But the tallest remembered to give it some loving attention, by then letting go of Donghos leg to cup his fingers around his dick from the top.

Jonghyun sped his movement, both his hand and all else, causing Dongho to break into loud cries that spoke of Jonghyuns name – the name which was better than any other name.

He had instantly lost it, furiously racing against Donghos deteriorating, about to be shattered hips. The mans body had become glistening sore and tortured from squeezing around Jonghyuns large shape, which had been pile driving into him full force, as if its intent was actually to break something inside of him.

They were moving out of place, throwing limbs at and over one another, and twisting their spines into the oddest angles. Judging by this, Dongho was probably close, and Jonghyun could feel how he was even closer.

The tallest focused on stroking his hand on Dongho even though his own dick was screaming to cum first, because seeing Dongho, who’s face had become all wet and slimy, wiggle and squeal under him was even more rewarding than that.

“I’m almost there, Dongho.” Jonghyun pant harder. It literally could be heard in his voice, that his heart had jumped to his throat, beating totally out of pace. The shortest gulped before the handsome leader, announcing such a thing.

He then winced when trying to sit up to better watch Jonghyuns body meet with his, accidentally becoming a witness to himself swallowing his friends entire length inside his small budging tummy. Again, he had set his eyes for Jonghyuns dick that looked way too big to even fit, wrapped in protective plastic. That annoyed him for some reason, the fact that he couldn’t fully feel it brushing skin to skin.

“Wait,” Dongho ruined the flow by speaking in a sudden and hurried voice. 

“Um Jonghyun, can you take that off?” The guy knew he probably looked absolutely feral to the other by asking something like this, his cheeks were glowing red like a beacon.

“Why?” Bug eyed Jonghyun stared straight down at his friend with that big, clueless look on his face. Dongho couldn’t believe he was actually making him say this.

“I want you to finish inside.” Dongho blurt out, wincing his eyes shut to not see how Jonghyun would react to his bullshit, “Okay?” He added a tiny sound.

Jonghyun was shocked, slightly grossed out, and as always blamed Minhyun for corrupting Dongho this bad, but was otherwise ready to comply. Before it, he carefully swore to himself that this would mark the last time that he would ever listen to any crazy thing that this guy was telling him to do. 

Jonghyun slid out to roll it off and then returned to refilling the body of his friend. Dongho gave him a quick smirk before his face melted into a look of ecstasy when Jonghyun restarted his thrusts, while still palming Donghos aching dick at the same time.

An invisible pink flame lit inside of him, burning Dongho alive from inside out. All of his body heat, which was absolutely unbearable by this point, flooded to the pit of his stomach that was rigged to explode any second.

It wasn’t long until Jonghyun groaned deep, his body leaned forwards and dick rocked Donghos depths. He came with a heavy grunt remaining inside, gently rocking back and forth a few times before finally pulling out, immediately letting white flood out of the used body and find its way onto the already soiled sheets.

He reopened his eyes to discover that Dongho had come too, only seconds apart from himself as if their bodies were set in sync. The shortest sat in his own mess, his stomach dripping with thick wet into to his naked, friction bruised thighs.

The two bodies dropped onto their backs to view the ceiling as if it were an open sky. Small fireworks were still going on under the skin for a long time after, random muscles would twitch an jolt even though the stimuli had been lost. Their breaths were still short, but overtime everything settled, and they rest in silence.

At one point Dongho hooked his fingers around Jonghyuns, the thing he always did when he was nervous or unsure. Jonghyun happily took the hand in his own, twirling those sore fingers that had been clawing at the sheets back to health.

Then Donghos ears caught Jonghyuns voice speaking to him, “You aren’t going to regret or try to forget this later, aren’t you?”

Dongho shot his head at him and made his response clear and direct, “I want to do this with you again.” The jerk was making a toothy smile at his friend, causing them both to have a giggle.

It became silent in between the two again, but this silence was rather comforting than awkward. It proved that they really didn’t need to speak to serve great company. However, as always Jonghyuns happy thoughts were short lived, and he began to worry about all things in the world. 

While his best friend was laying down with him, a very peculiar question sat on the tip of his tongue.

“Dongho, what do you think you are going to do after the groups contract? Eventually, when the time comes.” Jonghyun didn’t want to be blunt, knowing how much the group meant to Dongho, he didn’t wish to imply the sad word – disbandment.

Dongho shrugged his shoulders, “I never really thought about it, there’s not that many things I know how to do.” He stared back at the ceiling, “What about you?”

“I’m even more uncertain than you are.” Jonghyun admitted the root of his anxiety. 

While it seemed like Aaron, Mingi and Minhyun had it all figured out by now, the leader was still too attached to his current duty. He had no clue of a future without his friends, Jonghyun didn’t want to even imagine living in such a future.

He was a fool for making a promise for the group of boys to always stay together no matter what, as in the end he was the only one who had actually kept it.

“I want to stay with you.” Dongho very suddenly rolled around in bed, laying on his elbows beside Jonghyun.

For a split second Jonghyun raised his head from the pillow in shock, but then dropped it back down second after, “Have you lost your mind?” He exclaimed.

Dongho chuckled at the shocked reaction, “I mean, it would be cheaper to room together if we both decide to stay in Seoul, also I could just drive you around.” 

For some reason Jonghyun thought that the boy had implied something different, “Oh, so that’s what you meant by that.” He became blank. 

“What else did ya’ think I was talking about?” Clueless Dongho grinned at Jonghyun who had by then looked away to hide himself from getting hurt again.

Dongho quickly realized his friends sadness and his grin became a devastated frown, “I know. I was just kidding.” He apologized. To express his sorry Dongho cuddled next to the leader, hugging his side. 

“I want to stay with you Jonghyun.” The man silently repeated into the ear of his friend who had gone to sleep, “Jonghyun.”

 

Few weeks flew past quickly. Dongho and Jonghyun weren’t in the rush to pack up anywhere even if they should. They thought that if their last days were truly numbered, then they did not wish to plague their last moments together with being worried about some moving preparations. Plus, it wasn’t like they were getting kicked out outright anyways.

The only reason why the two idols ever swung by the company building was to drop by and say hi to their friends working in the studio. An album for another group was being recorded, so they went and gave out free help and advice to the next group by the company that was set to take their place.

Before leaving everything behind, they took one last look around the place – the practice rooms, the studios, the corridors, and of course the lounge room that hosted Donghos beloved automated coffee machine – now these halls were left eerie and empty, or locked to be populated by cheerful voices of different idol trainees entirely. Jonghyun and Dongho both admitted that they felt rather melancholy about it.

The two lead a path back from their practice rooms to their dorm, it wasn’t that far. Jonghyun and Dongho walked silently side by side, not exchanging a lot of words. 

It wasn’t like there were a lot of things to talk about these days, since the friends had been practically glued to one another this whole time. Dongho couldn’t help it, he liked hanging out with this guy too much, or maybe he just felt lonely without him these days.

Whatever it was, since Dongho could be easily read Jonghyun already knew about it. He was happily available to keep his promise and stay with Dongho, helping him fill whatever void there was to fill in the guys frail beating heart. Jonghyun was still hoping that Dongho would eventually learn protect his heart as well.

The two walked downhill a one way alley road, up until Dongho began turning his hip left. He detoured into a hollow concrete structure separating the back of two tall buildings dragging Jonghyun along with him. They had snuck away into some place quiet and away from the main view of the street facing a dead end. 

Dongho held Jonghyuns hand in his and leaned him close almost up against the concrete wall. Jonghyun was confused at first, but then he recognized the needy face his friend was making.

Time went by in a flash for him, moments later they had both already began kissing in that place where nobody could see them. The shortest man stood up on his tippy toes, pretending to be taller. Jonghyun pulled him close by his shoulders until eventually he could hang his arms around the back of his friends neck.

They broke up quickly, because as desperate Dongho was for kisses, he was still more scared of being discovered as distant sounds of cars went by in the background. Because of it he spawned an apologetic smile to his friend, who was as understanding as always.

The friends continued their path home as always, except it would be the last time that they ever walked from this direction of their company building again. But somehow they weren’t all that sad about it.

Dongho did not stay alone and by himself locked in his own room anymore. Him and Jonghyun slept in the same bed now. That gave the opportunity for endless cuddles, movie nights with discussions, and joined effort pillow fort building – Dongho couldn’t wait to get home for that today.

This way of staying together until the very end, the days seemed a little less darker for the two of them. If only it could always stay this way, they hoped.

 

The contract renewal day came. By the company officials it was made clear to them that there would be nothing to renew, as Dongho and Jonghyun were the only ones even still interested, and there were no resources to be spent on a seven year old group that had never turned profit.

Then, following that soon the disbandment day came too, but just as quickly it and the grief that came with it had passed. Four out of the five members decided to meet up when the announcement had been sent out to the fans. They all wrote heart-warming messages to the fans together as their final goodbye, and treated one another for a grand layered cake wearing a birthday topping to celebrate their seventh year anniversary. Yet after that they decided to all part ways by breaking contact.

Days after the disbandment trickled away, months passed in a flash. Dongho quickly managed to find a new job by becoming a full pledged producer at their company, that way he got to work along side the same people he already knew, who had previously helped write tracks for his own group. 

The now ex leader, Jonghyun ended up following Donghos choice by continuing work at the company as a songwriter and a coach mentor teaching the new trainees from various companies the same skills he had learned in order for them to become idols.

From an early morning until the dimming sundown, Dongho had trapped himself inside of a noisy studio room having made himself busy with trying to cook up something worthy of a comeback song for a rookie girl group.

The recording for today had just wrapped up and all of the girls left the studio room one by one, bowing down in front of Dongho and the other producers who had helped them today. Dongho stretched and yawned in his big leather chair, sitting in front of his studio equipment that had become layered with countless pages of edits and scrapped lyrics.

Indoors he was wearing a giant overcoat not bothering to hang it up, feeling as this studio was his own second home by now, other than the much colder, shabby apartment on the far side of town that him and his boyfriend had managed to snatch up for cheap.

Dongho was already bored to bone and ready to drag his ass back home, but he was now being told that he wouldn’t be able to clock out from work until probably way after midnight. Apparently there was some type of A-tier celebrity coming in today to talk about a possibility of recording a song.

Honestly Dongho hated working with those celebrity snobs and two-faced idols who all had super inflated egos, so he always sat out on it. However this time the said celebrity singer had specifically asked for Dongho, given his already impressive list of successful titles as an industry newcomer.

Choosing the path of song writing came as an easy choice for Dongho, as right before the disbandment had already been obsessively writing lyrics, and always making a big deal over his apparent writing blocks. Back then, Dongho had placed his self worth on writing songs about losing the one you love, and he hated his every written line. Fortunately, eventually it did pay off.

After mere minutes of waiting, the producers that had gathered all began to sit up to welcome the singer. Naturally Dongho sat up like all others, but as soon as he saw who had come in his eyebrows arched together and stood up like feathers of an angry bird.

Dongho showed teeth and sighed in disbelief, rejecting a handshake instead choosing to walk out this instant. The person who had come in to get a song made was Hwang Minhyun – dressed up all nicely and formal, brave to show his face after all this time of giving no call.

The jackass had no business to ever approach Dongho again, especially not now after almost two years had passed since they last stood face to face. The short male had grown to despise him now, finding reasons to hate the guy instead of himself is what had helped him heal so far.

An arm of a fellow producer prevented Dongho from leaving, pulling to his ear to say, “Come on Kang, you can’t keep a grudge against him forever?”

It wasn’t a simple grudge for Dongho, he was offended that anyone would even think that, yet then again none of his co-workers knew that the two men were actually exes. For everyone else in the studio, working with a top star was a big deal, and there were profits to be made out of this. Dongho had not much choice.

Minhyun replied with a statue like stare, his hand still held out waiting to be shook but for nothing. He awkwardly pulled it back, and for the first time, only after clearing his throat, spoke directly to his ex.

“Dongho—” He stuttered and took it back, “Kang, may I have a word with you first, alone?” Minhyun asked. His expression had turned into a worried one, one that showed signs of being afraid of getting rejected. 

Minhyuns upset looks made Dongho want to laugh, but in a wrenched situation like this he really couldn’t make himself do it.

Without giving Dongho a room to speak or protest, the others had agreed to said terms and began leaving the studio. Silent and with their head shot down, the men skipped their step outside, leaving the studio empty with just Minhyun and Dongho standing before one another and their imaginary dark cloud of thunder that gathered above their heads.

Minhyun was the first one to sit down, but Dongho remained standing, refusing to interact. The tallest dared to sigh and looked up at the man who had the growl on his face. Minhyun had already predicted that Dongho would react this way, after knowing him for so long, he expected nothing less of him.

Dongho didn’t even wait to speak his mind, his words sounded full of hate and despise, “Out of all places, why did you come here to get a damn song?”

Minhyun spoke in a powerful voice, “Because I want you to be the one to write it.” There was a break after his words, followed by a long dreadful silence that spread through the whole room.

“I don’t know anyone who could convey my feelings into a song better than you would.” The tallest made his words soft and quiet – sincere.

Dongho looked away, pretending to wipe under his nose and angled his feet towards the door. Old pain started to resurface in his chest and he had to try hard to supress it.

“I am not going to do that for you.” Dongho responded too quickly, ready to leave.

Minhyun forced a sad smile, “Just sit down first Dongho, I just want to talk with you first.” He spoke in a kind, calm voice that he always put on to sound semi-serious. 

“Talk about what?” Dongho angrily shot back at him, “You haven’t had the time to talk to me for over a year. Don’t try to come up to me now and say that you just want to talk when it’s already too late.”

Minhyun decided to stand again, after Dongho had never joined him to become tall and upset before the other man. He started, “I know I look bad, and I know I’ve let everyone down.”

Dongho cut off Minhyun from speaking, “And how long did it take you to realize that?” 

The tallest quickly regained the voice over Dongho, “I had no choice!” He made it loud and clear. The studio walls, although soundproofed, shook in the presence of his loud begging voice.

“Our group was doomed either way. But one of us had the chance succeed in order to save the others from our debts, and it just happened to be me.” Minhyun lowered his head in apology, his long bangs drooped pointing down to the floor.

It hurt him more than anything to admit that the group they had worked so hard all their lives to make successful, had ultimately failed – but that was the bitter truth he could not deny.

He continued, “I wanted to make some money to repay you guys. Make just enough to let you all get into good schools and live in good neighbourhoods.”

However the confession had left Dongho rather unfazed, unlikely to sympathize with the man even if this was coming from a true place in Minhyuns heart.

Yet he continued to speak, ignoring Donghos face of lost interest. “How could I face any of you guys and tell you that I wasn’t re-joining the group? You would never agree even if it was for your own good.” He cried, wishing to be understood. This whole time he had been hurting too.

Minhyun explained, “I believe if placed in my position, our leader would have done the same, so by thinking of him I had the strength to do it.”

It obviously rubbed Dongho the wrong way when Jonghyuns name was bought up into this. So he made a harsh reply, “You are wrong, Jonghyun would never abandon our team.”

There was a follow-up of words that came afterwards. It was quiet and miniscule coming from Donghos mouth, yet it would forever echo loud in Minhyuns ears.

“Or me.” Dongho implied more than one thing. Minhyun choose to ignore it.

“I did not abandon anyone!” Minhyuns defence came as a hoarse and pent up yell. His eyes had become glossy, threatening to spill tears.

Dongho shrugged his shoulders at the sight. Again, he didn’t want to think of Minhyun crying. Of course that still affected him, but for his own sake he had to tell himself that it did not.

“So where is this big promised money that you’ve made for us, huh?” Dongho changed the subject, mockingly looking around himself as if he were to find it in this very room. 

Minhyun calmed again and explained. “I had contacted Aaron and Mingi a while back trying to help them out with money, but they said they didn’t want my help nor do they wish to ever speak to me again.” He told Dongho, who acted not surprised.

The tall male experienced a hiccup before his next string of words, “And then you and Jonghyun—” The next moment Minhyun had abruptly stopped himself from speaking as if something had suddenly gotten stuck in his throat. 

Minhyun already knew about those two, Mingi who had caught the men being intimate once, had already spilled everything to him a long time ago. Jonghyun had given Dongho comfort while Minhyun himself couldn’t be there for the guy. In the end, Dongho had decided that he just wouldn’t be waiting for Minhyun anymore.

“Well,” He finally spoke up after struggling to, “So, albeit late I am still doing it now.” Minhyun announced. 

“I want you to work for me now, and then I’ll help you to get your name out there.” He promised as if his own life were on the line to repay his broken-hearted ex.

The proposition only made Dongho chuckle in irony, a cruel smirk made its way across his face. Minhyun had no idea how wrong he was thinking he could just come back one day, despite having good intentions, and show his face to Dongho out of all people.

Minhyun was in grief unknowing how to properly react to the always cheerful and easily excited Dongho, cruelly turning him down for the first time in his life. “I still won’t do it, you and me both know it would not be right.” The man told.

He made his words sound so cold that Minhyun could have sworn he felt a chill run down his body, dotting his skin with goose bumps. In response, Minhyun made a static face. 

He contemplated how Dongho was right, because Minhyun was indeed too late to fix things. Even if he tried to make everything better, it would never be the same and the realization of that hurt more than anything else.

The two men softened up from being tense and angry, as well as the yelling had gone down and they both shared a very silent moment. They were going through the same type of grieving thoughts.

Unfortunately, the two men were still very much in love with one another, but it was already over. Dongho had to get back tonight before it gets too dark outside, Jonghyun was waiting for him at home.

“Goodbye, Hwang Minhyun.” Dongho felt small pity for the other, as he finally said those fated words in person. Minhyun understood Dongho better than anyone else, and agreed with him that there was nothing else left to be said or done.

The tall male met his sad glance, and his reply came through sorrow and regret, “You too. Take care Kang Dongho.”

Soon after that, Minhyun was left sitting slouched alone and by himself in the empty studio room, thinking about all of the things he could have done better. His memories bought him back to the times when they all were still kids, although struggling and with no money at the time, those were their happiest times of their lives, but only because they had one another.

It took a while for anyone to notice that Dongho had already left the building, his co-workers barged into the studio room to almost fall down on their knees trying to convince Minhyun that they would talk some sense into Dongho to accept the offer and become a personal producer of a top star celebrity. Minhyun wasn’t even listening to the chatter anymore, it all sounded like just static to him.

 

Dongho and Jonghyun nowadays ate breakfast together at home, taking turns on who gets to be the worst chef each day. But today while they were eating, the meal at the table was being a little quiet, too quiet for Jonghyuns liking.

He knew something was up with Dongho, by the way he kept a serious face in front of his meal as if trying to seem normal in order to hide something. At this point Jonghyun was just waiting for the other to spit it out, because if he ever knew those pretty lips well, then he definitely that knew they sucked at keeping in secrets.

Jonghyun kept his eyes on the man who sat with his hands folded on top of the table, thumbs wriggling to peel dry skin around its corners. The eating utensils had gone untouched in a long while.

He took a deep breath. “So I met Minhyun yesterday.” Dongho finally revealed. It took him all of the air in his lungs to be able to push that information out. 

“Oh?” Jonghyun forgot to hold his surprise.

“Yeah.” Dongho shrugged wishing Jonghyun had said something more about it, so he wouldn’t have to carry this awkward mention all by himself.

“He wants to give me a job of writing songs for him to make it up to us.” He added, watching the ponderous look on the face of the other man expand, “I turned him down.”

Jonghyun lowered his head back at his plate, nodding in understanding. “Does it make you uncomfortable – being near him?” He asked.

“Uncomfortable?” Dongho raised one of his eyebrows, “Wouldn’t you be too?”

Jonghyun shrug his head, “Not really, I wouldn’t care too much by now.” He admitted, making Dongho feel like an alien for feeling the way he felt and wanting to avoid him.

His friend noticed the look, “Do you perhaps, by seeing that man again – still feel the same way about him?” Jonghyun didn’t mean to sound heartbroken, but Donghos heart broke instead by just having to listen to him say these things.

Jonghyun was always insecure, he knew it would take a lot of effort and time to make Dongho ever love him back to the same degree he loved Minhyun. He doubt it was even possible, because the memories of that man would never fully fade from Donghos heart.

Jonghyun believed couldn’t win even up against the shadow of Minhyun, yet he had already grown content with it. He spoke, “Dongho, If you really want to go back to him, then know that I won’t hold you back.”

After all he only wished for Dongho to be happy again, forgetting to recognize that the guy was already happy enough with him.

Those accepting words only made Dongho more mad and upset, “What the hell are you saying, you moron?” He made it loud and clear, making Jonghyun shoot his eyes up from his plate, looking as if they physically shined with relief. 

“Sorry.” Jonghyun made his voice low and sad. “Don’t apologize.” Dongho just shrugged.

After his nasty outburst Dongho made an awkward pause, becoming a bit shy for a moment before he would be speaking up again to say the most wicked thing. 

“Besides, I already told Minhyun that you and me are a thing.” Saying these words out loud made Dongho do a tiny smile at himself and instantly Jonghyun made one as well, moved by it.

They acted like little kids right after making a confession – smiley, blushing in both cheeks and unable to say a thing to one another because it had gotten so awfully awkward by now that each of them wanted to hide somewhere under a blanket instead.

Jonghyun continued to eat from his plate, glancing his big puppy eyes at the other with almost his every single bite. Dongho ate slower, weirdly enough his stomach felt full just by looking at Jonghyun eat alone.

Soon the ex leader had done eating. He instructed the other man, “Tell me when you’re done eating. I’ll do the dishes.” However, Dongho called out to him, right as Jonghyun was getting up from the table. “No, I will do them this time.” He smiled wide.

Jonghyun instantly drew suspicion because Dongho was being a little bit too nice, “It already was your turn yesterday, remember?” 

The shortest began to act as if this was some kind of a game, one where he lost if he ever backed down. “I must insist.” Dongho spoke in a teasing voice.

Fast forward to Jonghyun and Dongho now washing the dishes together in one sink. One of them was wearing gloves and the other working under the running water with bare hands. The two rascals would occasionally splash water onto one another on purpose. Their squealing and laughing spread far throughout the same kitchen.

Dongho had the idea that Jonghyun would look better with bubbles and foam on his nose, Jonghyun retaliated by screaming trying to do the same to him. The two tussled pushing back and forth to avoid any hand to face contact, all while laughing at how stupid they both looked.

Somewhere in midst of a fierce battle Dongho got both of Jonghyuns hands held up in the air, he stalled when his brain finally processed how close Jonghyuns face stood away from his own. Within a milisecond Jonghyun had paused his laugher to lean a kiss into Donghos lips. 

Jonghyun did it as just a little joke at first, but Dongho took it serious, he even let go of Jonghyuns arms to shut the running water tap.

It hadn’t been too long since the last time the two men competing ended up going too overboard and the next thing found themselves randomly kissing like this. One time it was while they were in middle of mercilessly tickling one another under the sheets, another time it was at the studio after trying to figure out who could hold their breath for longer. Somehow they always found a way to get themselves in this least expected position.

The men made out ignoring their foam dirtied faces as if it wasn’t even there, sliding their jaws against one another from an angle to an angle. The will to stand disappeared quick and the two decided the best would be to sit on the kitchen floor that they had just swept less than two weeks ago, evident by the crumbs of food matching exactly what they ate two weeks ago, still laying around.

They sat side by side, back resting against the counter of the sink, their lips still connected for a slow and enduring kiss. Dongho took the rubber glove off from his friends hand before allowing the man to ever touch him with his wet, foamy hands.

As soon as they were out and dry, they instantly went inside of Donghos shirt. His fingers searched under, creeping up to his chest and riding the fabric of the shirt up along with it.

The shortest had to moan out of the kiss to gasp at how freezing cold Jonghyuns hands were on his chest. Jonghyun laughed at the guy getting perked up by as little as this, and then further mocked him by cheering after Donghos ears had been made red with shame.

Dongho answered by gently taking a hand to the mans neck, pulling him into a kiss meant to shut him up. Donghos hands were wet from the water, so it would rain down Jonghyuns neck and later his back behind his shirt. Though, they didn’t seem to care.

The kiss was giving them both a high that they couldn’t get down from for as long as they were connected by their lips. Together their bodies made enough heat to make that wet sink water sensation on their bodies go missing.

Jonghyun dared to take Donghos lip against his teeth, pulling a long and loud whine of bliss out of him. That combined with Jonghyuns hands going up and across the inside of his shirt made Donghos mind slow to one frame of thought per second.

As soon as Jonghyun had cruelly stopped, Dongho instantly crash landed back down on earth wishing that he had stayed up there for a bit longer. All there was left of that good feeling was just Jonghyuns heavy breathing onto his neck.

Donghos eyes became big and concerned trying to figure out the reason his friend had gone away and why he was now glaring at him as if he had done a thing wrong.

Desperate, Dongho blurted out the first thing that came to mind, “I love you.” His confused confession made Jonghyun shoot into a fit of giggles.

Being told that he was loved by Dongho was the one thing that always made Jonghyuns day. Even though Dongho had been throwing out a bunch of randomly timed I-love-you’s to Jonghyun quite a lot recently, it still never really got old to him.

“You dumbass,” Jonghyun arched himself into a hug, giving his friend a close-up of a wide grin. 

“I was just gonna ask, maybe we should take this to the other room?” He tilt his head, pointing to where he believed the door behind him was.

Jonghyun implied beds, pillows, cuddling, but even if Dongho wanted that so badly, he really couldn’t lift himself from the kitchen tiles anymore, claiming the effects of a sudden fatigue.

“Can you carry me there then?” He made himself sound real desperate just by standing there and looking as dumb as always in his wet shirt.

Jonghyun had to whine about it first, but then he did it anyways, as long as he got to over the shoulder drop Dongho down onto the bed afterwards. With much exaggerated struggle he pulled the man from the floor by holding onto his hand, and once they both stood he still never let go.

The two ended up laying in bed all day to night. Donghos phone had been ringing nonstop for hours from the other room over, but he muted that sound with stories he wished to tell to Jonghyun. His mouth never grew tired of words.

The two laid together, chilling and facing the ceiling above still not being used to the fact that it wasn’t the one they had already grown used to at their old dorms.

Their new lives had been difficult and they definitely weren’t good, but one thing that made them both happy was the fact that they were still there for one another. Leader or not, Jonghyun was to keep his promise of never giving up on his dear member.

Perhaps someday Aaron and Mingi would run into them somehow too. Maybe they would even see Minhyun again. Jonghyun spoke about his dreams to Dongho, who had closed his eyes listening to the sound of his voice that only reached his sleepy ears only as a hum.

Jonghyun readjusted himself in the pile of pillows from where he was to press shoulders closer with Dongho. The guy on his right was only wearing his shorts, exposing himself to the room that had already become chilly after sundown.

The cold room reminded Dongho of something too. He began mumbling in his sleep, “The next winter is supposed to be colder than the last, it seems like.” 

“Hmm.” Jonghyun had heard so too. “Then are you ready to from now on hold onto this?” He teased, by holding out his warm hand towards the ceiling. 

Dongho clasped his own hand with Jonghyuns, so that their fingers were locked tight to never let go.

“As always.” He promised, eyes still shut.

**Author's Note:**

> 👁🌊


End file.
